Welcome to Memorial Safety.

We are a UK company directly facing the issues of monument and memorial stability and safety; we have a direct policy and service to correct and reduce the risk of injury to the bereaved and general public when visiting cemeteries, churchyards and burial grounds in the South East of England.

The Health and Safety Executive has stated that 'The risk associated with unstable memorials is real and cannot be ignored'

This statement has been in response to 21 serious accidents and 3 fatalities in the past 5 years. These figures do not include statistics collected by local authorities themselves.

Local and Burial Authorities as a rsponse to demands by the HSE and Government and in an effort to reduce the danger of toppling stones in Cemeteries, have a policy under the Local Authorities Cemeteries Order 1977 which allows them to take immediate action to make safe dangerous memorials. Unfortunately, unskilled operatives and council employees with little understanding of memorials and how they are fitted, are permitted under this order to remove or lay flat any monument which they feel is unsafe. This often results in further damage to stonework which could easily be avoided. A dismantled monument is also quite often the target for vandalism; the pieces can be smashed, picked up and used as missiles against other memorials or even scattered across the cemetery.

Although some efforts are made, many families and next of kin are not being informed of works  to make safe or 'lay down' memorials; the insensitivity shown is a cause for great concern.

Most people would wish the opportunity to have a family monument checked, stabilised or corrected by qualified personel prior to any Local Authority stability testing to ensure that the above doesn't happen to their own memorial.

We offer a sympathetic testing procedure by fully trained and time served Stonemasons who wish to see an end to the legalised vandalism which is sweeping across the UK.

This monument was completely stripped down and rebuilt by us.....

And is now safe and secure, meeting all current testing criteria.

Local Authorities have legal powers under the Local Authorities Cemteries Order 1977 to remove any tombstone or other memorial which is dilapidated by reason of neglect.

You could prevent the risk of this happening to your family memorial today.

What causes monuments to topple? The HSE identified inadequate cemetery upkeep and maintenance regimes as well as poor design and installation of memorials.

We feel that modern methods of grave digging, plot allocation and proximity have a big impact on memorial stability; the use of JCB's to dig graves and burial plots of only 4ft. in width, leave little room for sufficient foundations to support memorials. In some cases, this type of grave digging is resulting in whole burial sections becoming unstable.

Government figures estimate that around 60% of memorials in our cemeteries and churchyards are unsafe; the cost for correcting this problem is considered to be in the region of £48million to the british tax payer.

A new British Standard 'Specification for monuments within burial grounds' (BS8415) is soon to be published but the current issue of unsafe memorials remains as does the insensitive and un-proffessional approach by some Local Authorities.