Fury at overflowing bins in graveyard
Woman visiting mum’s grave is shocked
A woman who went to tend her mother’s grave at a Bathgate cemetery has hit out at the “shocking” state she found the graveyard in.
Nichola McKeon flagged up her concerns about Boghead Cemetery after visiting the grave on Mother’s Day, when she found the bins overflowing with rubbish which was also lying around the graveyard.
And she became angry following another visit earlier this month, when she saw that more rubbish had mounted up.
Nichola said: “I visted the cemetery for Mother’s Day to find the buckets were overflowing to a degree that rubbish was up and down the place - every bin there was in the same way.
“I appreciate it was Mother’s Day and loads of people would be visitng but to me this was shocking.
“Also I went with flowers and also saw that there is now no water in the graveyard as the tap has been knocked over.
“Flowers are expensive at best of times and it now appears that they are going ro be ruined through lack of water.
“I have seen in the last couple of years a decline in the services at the grave site and I can only imagine its down to budget cuts.
“But this is where people’s familes are laid to rest and people go to pay their respects and I find that there is no need for this.”
A spokesperson for West Lothian Council admitted there had been issues around staff sickness which has resulted in delays at a few cemeteries, but stressed the problem had nothing to do with cuts.
He continued: “There have been some delays in clearing items away from cemetery bins at some locations.
“This has been caused due to short term staffing issues and we can assure residents that measures are currently being taken to address the current backlog. We would like to apologise for the recent delays, however it is a short term problem which will be addressed very soon.
“We would like to clarify that there has been no budget cuts within the cemetery provision in West Lothian.
“The council has invested significantly in West Lothian’s cemeteries and we do not accept that there has been a decline in the standard of our cemeteries and huge amount of work goes into ensuring that our cemeteries are maintained to a very high standard.”
There have been some delays due to short term staffing issues. We apologise