Safety checks for memorials

Work to make safe more than a thousand memorials is starting in Stoke-on-Trent's graveyards.

Inspectors are assessing the gravestones and giving each of them a colour-coding according to the danger they are deemed to pose.

There was a public outcry when many hundreds of the city's gravestones were laid flat without the owners being consulted.

The city council apologised and paid compensation, but now a properly organised programme of inspections will start in earnest, supported by a telephone helpline.

Most dangerous memorials

The checks begin on Monday at Burslem cemetery.

The most dangerous memorials, in the white category, will have a notice attached and be laid on to wooden supports within 24 hours.

Those labelled green will be inspected again within five years.

Similar inspections will start at Smallthorne on 2 June, then at Fenton, Hanley, Tunstall and Carmountside.