MEMORIALS in Tavistock cemeteries are to be subjected to a rigorous safety check this winter, to make sure they are not a danger to the public.
The town council, which owns the cemeteries in Dolvin Road and Plymouth Road, is conducting the safety audit under new rules issued by the Association of Burial Authorities.
The guidelines have been set up following an incident in June 2002 when a young child was killed in an accident involving an unsafe memorial at a burial ground in Harrogate.
Town clerk Roger Howard said the safety inspection would begin within weeks, as soon as permission to carry out the work had been granted.
He said: ?Most of the land in our cemeteries is consecrated, so we have to wait for a faculty from the Exeter diocese which allows us to work on memorials which are on consecrated land.?
Col Howard said once permission was granted, works staff would be imposing a test force of 30kg to check the stability of all the monuments in the two cemeteries.
?You can either buy a machine or you can do a finger tip test, which is where you learn how much a 30kg push is, and you push the memorial that much,? said Col Howard, who said it was ?common sense? to use the latter method, as the machines cost around £1,000.
Once the memorials have been tested, they will be covered with a yellow plastic warning bag if they are hazardous.
He said the council already knew of several older memorials which could be unsafe and as soon as the bags, already on order, have arrived, they will be covered and, if deemed dangerous, laid down.
Col Howard said where possible, the owners of the memorials considered hazardous will be contacted and given a period of time in which to repair them.
He said where owners cannot be contacted, the future of unsafe memorials will be decided by the council on a case-by-case basis.
?If it?s a really beautiful old monument the council might possibly be willing to spend tax payers? money repairing it, but we have to make it safe,? said Col Howard.
He said problems could arise in some cases, if for example, the memorial was a particularly large cross.
?We can?t leave it as a danger and the council, I doubt, would spend money trying to repair them. You can?t really lie a cross down, a fence would look ugly and the council would still be liable even it was fenced,? said Col Howard.
He said the memorials which required work were not necessarily the oldest ones ? some more recently erected stones had not been given deep foundations and could require repairs.
He said the most recent memorials in Tavistock?s cemeteries now had to comply with a code of practice to make sure they were safely based in the ground.
And Col Howard said any families owning a memorial in the cemeteries at Dolvin Road and Plymouth Road may like to inspect their stones themselves in the coming weeks.