Trinket ban at remembrance garden

Banned items include wind chimes and small ornaments.

Unofficial memorials are to be banned from a remembrance garden in Fife.

Officials said the facility, at the Dunfermline Crematorium, had become overrun with trinkets and other unofficial memorials.

From December, council staff will clear away all mementoes which have not been removed by relatives. These include wind chimes and photograph frames.

Fife Council said the decision followed complaints that the area was becoming cluttered and untidy.

Mike Rumney, a Dunfermline councillor, told BBC Scotland news website: "It's getting out of hand."

"Where we can recognise people from names on plaques, we will give them chance to remove the items. Then they will be cleared away."

Under the new rules, only official plaques which meet the council's size specifications will be allowed.

The move is in response to the increasing number of small fenced off areas which have been created alongside the official memorials.

Several 'unofficial memorials' have been placed in the garden.

Bereavement Services Manager Liz Murphy said: "We appreciate some families will find removing the memorials difficult."

"We hope they will co-operate and allow us to restore the setting at the gardens to a peaceful retreat suitable for all."

The unauthorised items will be cleared away on Monday 3 December but Fife Council stressed that they would not be thrown away.

Instead they will be stored in the crematorium office where relatives can collect them.