CHESTER City Council is carrying out an inspection programme to check the safety of headstones and memorials at its cemeteries.

The work, already under way at Blacon Cemetery, follows Health and Safety Executive instructions to all councils to conduct regular checks to ensure memorials are maintained in a safe condition.

Under the rules the council is obliged to take remedial action to make safe any memorials designated as an immediate danger to the public. This involves laying the headstones flat or temporarily supporting them.

Meanwhile, memorials which are found to be a potential danger if action is not taken by the owners to stabilise them will have signs placed within the grave space.

Although the council will take safety action, the ultimate responsibility for the safety and stability of headstones and memorials remains with the grave's owners.

The city council will do its best to contact owners at their known address to arrange to have the memorial re-fixed by a professional stonemason.

Some records will not show a contemporary address so the council is urging families who have a plot at either Blacon or Overleigh cemeteries to make sure staff have up to date details by writing to the Cemeteries & Crematorium Service, Blacon Avenue, Chester CH1 5BB.

The inspection methods are recommended by the National Association of Memorial Masons and endorsed by the Institute of Cemetery and Crematorium Management. The work follows a number of incidents in other parts of the country where unsafe memorials have collapsed and either injured or killed visitors.

Visitors who find that safety action has been taken or that a safety notice applies to their plot can contact the Blacon office.