A man visiting his parents' graves in Kingswood said the grass there was so overgrown it "resembled a jungle". The visitor to Holy Trinity Church, who preferred not to be named, has spoken out after a mourner complained about the state of another Bristol cemetery.
The man, who now lives in Cheddar, was visiting the grave of his parents last year and took photographs of the overgrown churchyard. Although the photos are not recent, he claimed they "show a truly appalling picture of years of neglect, unlike at Shirehampton where there has been a temporary lapse of attention".
He was referring to Shirehampton Cemetery, after another Bristol resident was left in tears at the 'appalling state' of the grass on a recent visit to the graves of her parents and son. She had said that the issue of overgrown grass and other plants was not just confined to her family's graves, but the entire cemetery and added that it had been going on for a number of years.
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Similarly, photos from the churchyard at Holy Trinity Church in Kingswood showed grass, bushes and trees almost completely covering some graves, while others could just about be seen poking out from among it all. Sharing the images with Bristol Live, the man said: "To access parts of the graveyard, which resemble a jungle, would require use of a machete."
He said he had contacted two parish councillors, the church authorities, the local MP for the area and South Gloucestershire Council about the issue. As the churchyard is now closed, the council is now responsible for its maintenance.
However, he said that the office of Kingswood MP Chris Skidmore responded to tell him that, since he now lived in Cheddar, the MP was not able to look into issues raised by someone who wasn't a constituent of his. The response he received from South Gloucestershire Council last year, he said, 'drew a blank' because of "legal complications arising from ownership of older graves".
A South Gloucestershire Council spokesperson told Bristol Live: "Holy Trinity Graveyard is classified as a ‘closed churchyard’. As such the council is responsible for the general maintenance of the generic areas around the graveyard.
"This does not include the responsibility for the maintenance of the individual graves themselves, which remain the property and responsibility of the Grave Deed owners. The difficulty with this site is that there is a high density of ‘full masonry’ on many of the graves and much of the self-sown trees and weeds are growing out from within those graves and as such we cannot remove the growth from them.
"We will continue to try to identify and notify the grave owners of the condition of their graves and encourage them to undertake maintenance on their graves to help improve access and safety. We apologise for any distress caused whilst we try to resolve this maintenance issue.”
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