Council leader promises grieving families ‘common sense’ approach over new grave rules

The leader of Broxtowe Borough Council has promised grieving families a “common sense” approach will be worked out over controversial cemetery tribute rules. Broxtowe families involved in a petition to overturn restrictions around grave memorabilia spoke to leader Councillor Milan Radulovic following a meeting at Bramcote Crematorium meeting on Thursday night (October 24).

The petition, Save our Cemetery Gardens and Memorials, started last Friday (October 18) and has attracted nearly 1,000 signatures in a week. The action began in response to the council’s cabinet decision in July this year to restrict grave tribute items.

Chilwell Cemetery is the first of five borough-owned cemeteries to receive a deadline of January 23, 2025, for when “unofficial surrounds” will be cleared from graves. After this date, maintenance teams will remove and dispose of any decorations, ornaments or tributes from people’s resting places.

Broxtowe Borough Council says the restrictions are based on maintenance difficulties and health and safety reasons and rules have always been in place. Speaking to a group of families last night, Cllr Radulovic, said: “There has been a trend over the last few years of putting some things that I think violate the consecrated ground.

“We’re not saying to people that they can’t put personal things on there, the intention is to be respectful of not just your grave, but all graves- what we’re saying is use your common sense.”

Cllr Radulovic was speaking after a Bramcote Bereavement Services Joint Committee Meeting, a routine meeting held at the crematorium. Lindsey Collins, whose son Josh Collins died in 2021 at the age of 19, is buried in Beeston Cemetery - she presented the Bramcote Bereavement Service’s updated ‘Notice of Interment’ form- a form she says is different to the one she signed a few years prior.

The 2023 form reads that “no item of whatever description is allowed to be placed upon the actual grave space in the lawn and cremated remains area”. The form states this includes fencing, kerbing, bedding plants, vases, windmills, gravel, glass or alcohol and that these will be removed and disposed of immediately.

Families spoke of the added trauma such strict rules would cause them. The rules have left Lindsey “heartbroken” and fearing she would have to remove ornaments left on her son’s grave plot.

She said: “I don’t understand how the council could change the rules because they’ve always accepted this – had I had known this wasn’t acceptable I wouldn’t have buried my son [there].”

Lesley Webb wants to bury the ashes of her late husband Peter in Beeston Cemetery. He died in June at age 74 – the rules will not allow her to lay a stone book containing Peter’s memorial.

She called for a fairer “three-strikes” rule, saying: “If we maintain them ourselves and if someone neglects it they get a warning- on the third time the council does it. At the end of the day it’s the last act we can do for our loved ones.”

Lindsey added: “If that garden means that much to you then you’re going to take care of it- if you don’t take care of it then you’ve only got yourself to blame.”

Speaking with Cllr Radulovic after the meeting, the families asked for more communication between the council, the bereavement services department and families involved to form an arrangement. Cllr Radulovic told families: “Come and see me and we will sit round a table.”

He said “We do an awful lot of respectful stuff on behalf of people- I defend our staff here – they have tried to interpret the law and rules as laid down to us – but we do have the power to vary that.

“You’ve got a blanket piece of legislation regarding health and safety that’s completely unworkable.”