More regulation needed on cemeteries – Parish council and national body calling for action on Essington plots.

The private owners of Essington Cemetery, UK Cemetery, entered administration in November last year after creditors served a demand for £3.5m for failed loan payments.

It has left hundreds of people who have paid up to £3,000 for burial plots doubting whether they will be able to bury family members next to each other.

Warren Fisher, an independent councillor for Essington on South Staffordshire District Council has called for greater regulation of private cemeteries.

He told the Express and Star of a heartbreaking conversation with a woman whose husband is buried in the cemetery, in Bursnips Road, and who is ill – she expressed to him serious doubt over whether she would be able to be buried next to him.

Mr Fisher said: "This could be far more than an issue at a local level, it could be a national scandal because it seems unless families have brought a grave from a local authority such as South Staffordshire where there is three such burial grounds, there money is not secure.

"In this case we understand administrators are in talks with a company to take on Essington Cemetery but this has been going on since last year and potentially left families out of pocket or with worries they don't need when love ones are ill or coming to the end of their lives."

Members of the parish council have set up working groups to clean up the cemetery which has fallen into a state of disrepair.

Samantha Curtis is a member of Essington Parish Council whose father is buried at the cemetery.

She says the families discovered via social media that the owner had gone into administration.

"It's put people through misery. I've seen an elderly lady here cutting the grass around her husband's headstone with scissors. People just want answers. "

"The agreements families have about burial plots are with the previous owners. If a company goes into administration, there seems to be no regulation or consumer protection for them."

Julie Dunk, the chief executive of the Institute of Cemetery and Crematorium Management said as a body they would be pressing the government into bringing in greater regulation on proivate cemeteries.

She said: "This shouldn't happen to anyone and we have heard many tales from people who have been affected by the problem in Essington – it is not completely uncommon but often takes people by surprise when it happens.

""We will continue to press for more regulation and control over companies who run private burial grounds nationwide as we continue to represent our members."

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