Don't ever think that dying is going to enable an escape from Health & Safety
Gary Smith, 62, visited the grave of his aunt and uncle at All Saints’ Church in Carshalton last Monday.
Mr Smith, who regularly visits their grave to pay his respects was appalled to find a wooden stake had been nailed into the back of their gravestone and blue twine tied round it.
He said: “There are 22 graves which have had these wooden stakes nailed to them, and the blue tape tied around them.
“They have disturbed the earth and made the stones more loose. I’m not sure what they think they are doing but these are people’s dead relatives.
That's pretty poor behaviour from the council workers. The councillors at this authority must be up in arms about it.
Councillor Colin Hall, executive member for the Environment and said: “I am sorry for any distress to the resident who has contacted your paper. We make great efforts to treat grave sites with respect."
Respect? Do you even know the meaning of the word? Is there anyone in the UK who would class nailing bits of wood to a gravestone as 'respectful'?
“However, the council is required by the Health and Safety Executive to inspect every headstone in our cemeteries and churchyards following a number of deaths and injuries across the country from falling headstones. Any that are found to be unsafe, as this particular headstone was, must be made secure.”
Good grief. Still, I suppose Mr Smith should count himself lucky the stone is still standing. In Aberdeen, they knock the fuckers over.
Will it ever stop?
4 comments:
“However, the council is required by the Health and Safety Executive to inspect every headstone in our cemeteries and churchyards following a number of deaths and injuries across the country from falling headstones. Any that are found to be unsafe, as this particular headstone was, must be made secure.”
John Mann said at:
http://www.theyworkforyou.com/whall/?id=2008-11-05b.129.0
What is going wrong? It is not the Health and Safety Executive. In 2007, a written answer stated:
"In 2004, the chairman of the Health and Safety Commission wrote to all local authorities setting out the need for a pragmatic approach to this very sensitive issue."—[Hansard, 20 February 2007; Vol. 457, c. 610W.]
The problem is that some local authorities and others have not been listening. Instead of thinking pragmatically and understanding health and safety and the concept of risk assessment, local authorities have brought in private contractors and paid them a sort of piece rate, creating a perverse incentive for the contractor to stake or lay down the gravestones, deeming them to be unsafe whether they are or not.
What sort of cunt fixes wood to stone using a nail anyway ?
I can see the dangers presented to teenages rutting in the shadow of vast Victorian memorial structures but not with these more modest stones.
Lawson seems to have the answer.
Perhaps they thought they were vampires?
Not sure how the blue tape helps though. Maybe they saw it on Buffy..
"A number of deaths and injuries from falling gravestones" - can anybody show us the figures? And the gravestone in the picture would present no threat even if it did fall over.
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