Taking charge over the state of cemeteries

The upkeep of our cemeteries this year has been a disgrace.

In April I publicly advised our councillors to look at this issue.

They finally got round to doing so last week by inviting their contractor to tell us what went wrong this year – they need not have bothered!

Our councillors raised the need for feedback loops and their own private reporting system but let the council’s senior management and the contractor off the hook.

It was clear to me that some of our councillors simply did not know what this contractor did while others failed to notice that the director responsible did not respond to a single point raised during their meeting!

If we are to see improvements at our cemeteries some simple, but urgent changes are required.

A cabinet member should be named as having responsibility for cemeteries, RBWM should introduce a service charter that governs their work at our cemeteries and it should be very easy for the public to report issues directly to the council.

Not rocket science, but some simple changes that could make a difference to the upkeep of our cemeteries.

As one resident said to me ‘councillors have not dropped the ball on the state of our cemeteries – they never picked it up in the first place!

Let’s hope that things are better next year, but on last week’s performance residents should not raise their expectations just yet!

ED WILSON Bryer Place

Windsor