Wooburn Green Parish Council has backtracked on plans to carry out maintenance work at a local cemetery after plot holders described it as ‘disrespectful’.

According to a notice put up at Wooburn and Bourne End cemetery in April, the parish council had been planning “maintenance works” on its upper garden of remembrance – a gravel area housing memorial stones to mark burials of contained ashes.

However, Rona Clemerson, 72, whose parents, grandparents and great-grandparents were buried at the cemetery, said she thought the plans were “disrespectful and inappropriate”.

The retiree, who lives in East Sussex but grew up nearby and has family in the area, said “didn’t see how” workers would be able to remove the stones and re-gravel the area without “trampling all over” the burial plots – a prospect that made her “very angry”.

She also accused the council of failing to regularly maintain the remembrance garden through pulling out weeds and cleaning the stones – something she thinks led to the need for larger-scale maintenance work.

“It’s upsetting, thinking of people moving the stones and walking on top of my parents’ ashes. And it’s worse that they’ve let it become a mess and then not told us exactly what they’re planning to do, leaving us to expect the worst.”

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The concerns expressed by Rona and family members, including a cousin whose husband’s ashes are also laid in the memorial garden, appear to have hit home with parish councillors, however, with a spokesperson confirming today (August 16) that the work has been shelved out of a ‘respect and sensitivity’ to plot holders.

Council clerk Mike Balbini said: “If we were to undertake the maintenance, stones would absolutely be put back in the exact place they came from.

“Our staff are both professional and emotionally intelligent and would carry out the works respectfully and with great care.

“However, due to various communications with plot holders, we have taken the decision not to carry them out, as previously planned.

“We respect the wishes of the families who have loved ones laid to rest here and we do not wish to upset or cause stress to anybody regarding such a personal and sensitive topic.”

Mr Balbini said signage at the cemetery would be changed to reflect the new stance and asked anyone with issues relating to the cemetery to “contact or attend (the council offices) to discuss”.