AN urgent appeal has been made to owners of memorials in Tavistock's cemeteries — a survey has revealed that more than 70 of the structures are dangerous and pose a risk to the public.

Tavistock Town Council, which owns the cemeteries in Plymouth Road and Dolvin Road, has already placed advertisements in the Times but so far, no-one has responded.

Although the council owns the cemeteries, it is the responsibility of memorial owners to ensure their property is safe.

Town clerk Roger Howard said the memorials in the Plymouth Road Cemetery identified as dangerous have been covered with yellow plastic bags as a warning — but the situation was getting serious.

'It's actually quite worrying,' said Col Howard. 'It's something that's been building up over the last few years. There have actually been four or five fatalities in the UK caused through accidents involving memorials.

'They are a health hazard and because insurance companies get terribly twitchy about this sort of thing, they insist we inspect them.'

Col Howard said the memorials which pose most danger are those which have been erected in the last 50 years or so.

If the owners of the dangerous memorials are not found, the council will have to bear the cost of making them safe — in most cases this will mean laying them down flat, or at a 30 to 45 degree angle.

Col Howard said: 'If we just lie them down, it's just the cost of man hours. But where there might be a cost is if we find really old, nice looking memorials, like a cross which can't be laid down, and we do have one or two of those, what do we do then?

'Some of the old ones are so big you'd have to have a gantry to move them, so there could be quite a large cost there.'

He said the council could employ a memorial firm to carry out the work, but the financial implications might be 'substantial'.

Col Howard added that so far, only the consecrated ground in the cemetery at Plymouth Road had been surveyed. That left two thirds of this cemetery still to be inspected, plus the closed cemetery at Dolvin Road, which contained some very large memorials.

The town clerk said the faculty, or permission, to move memorials in the consecrated area of Plymouth Road Cemetery expires in May 2004.

The council's cemeteries sub-committee will be asked to make a decision on how to deal with the dangerous memorials at its meeting next week — due to insurance risks, taking no action was 'not an option', said Col Howard.

The committee is also to consider new charging policies at the cemetery.

Anyone who would like information on the memorials identified as dangerous in Tavistock Cemetery should call the cemetery superintendent on 01822 612799.