Dumfries and Galloway Council inspected nearly 20,000 headstones for safety, finding over 4% needing repair as part of an ongoing project.
The Dumfries and Galloway Council is doing this and has been checking cemeteries for over five years. All 215 of them get inspected because the council is responsible there.
Some headstones were unsafe, just over four percent, and needed some fixing. They’ll talk about it at a meeting soon regarding the project’s progress.
They checked 19,699 headstones already, and phase three has 10,891 left to check. After that, they will start repairs; about 1200 stones need fixing.
The council had to change how things worked because people got upset about the repairs, and the old way caused problems due to lack of communication.
They used to stick stones in the ground. Now, they use a yellow marker, which tells families to call the council, meaning the headstone needs work.
This all started after something bad in Glasgow when a headstone fell and killed a child back in 2015. Now they are improving safety.
The council keeps cemeteries safe, it’s their duty to the community, but families must maintain their own headstones; that’s the family’s job.