A PARISH council has apologised for causing uproar by ordering contractors to flatten more than 100 unsafe gravestones in a West Somerset cemetery.

Porlock Parish Council chairman Cllr Duncan McCanlis said the authority regretted the upset caused by laying down headstones and memorials in Hawkcombe Cemetery.

Cllr McCanlis told a packed council meeting it was a work in progress and the priority was to make safe any headstones deemed unsafe, and laying them flat was the quickest way to do so.

The council agreed to set up a burials and memorials committee to review and oversee burial and memorial practices.

Porlock businessman Richard Growden, whose wooden cross on his mother’s grave was among those laid flat, was appointed as a non-councillor to the new committee.

Mr Growden said: “Unfortunately, this was a very weak attempt at diffusing the emotional state of many people that were in attendance.”

He said the council’s 15-minute slot for public participation actually lasted an hour as villagers expressed their feelings and councillors ‘were clearly very shocked and were left stony faced by the horrendous upset that they had caused’.

Mr Growden said the council admitted with hindsight the decision should not have been made and a ‘massive effort’ would be made to put things right.

He said: “Members of the parish council should be ashamed at what has been generated by poor performance and poor administration.”

Cllr McCanlis said: “We are now working with the memorial company to get the stones on the level area fixed and put back up as soon as possible.

“In hindsight, our community communication could have been better.

“However, we did put up a sign at the cemetery gates in January, 2024, and on Facebook.”

Councillors were told it would cost up to £20,000 to make all the gravestones safe again.

The work was commissioned after a safety inspection revealed 177 headstones were either unsafe or loose.

However, when graves in the village’s St Dubricius Churchyard were inspected, unsafe headstones were only marked and a warning notice placed at the entrance gate while the council sought permission from the Bath and Wells Diocese to take further action.

Councillors had been trying for months to contact any living relatives of those buried in Hawkcombe cemetery whose plots were affected, but managed to find only four families.

Parish clerk Jonathan Jones said since recent media coverage of the controversy, some families had come forward with next of kin information, and some had directly contacted monumental masons to have memorials fixed.

Mr Jones said the council was required by law to inspect memorials every five years, with loose headstones re-inspected annually, and carry out any safety work within 18 months.

Mr Jones said councillors could take £9,000 from several reserve funds but would need to consider their options for meeting the remaining cost.

He said some grant funding options had been explored but their strict criteria requirements had not been met, while others were being looked at, although the application process could take ‘a considerable amount of time’.