Colchester: Graveyards left open to cut costs

7:40am Tuesday 19th August 2008

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GRAVEYARDS will be left unlocked at night as part of a plan to save cash – despite fears the move will encourage vandals.

Colchester Council bosses have also slashed spending on litter-picking and grass-cutting at closed churchyards around the town.

A report claims the cuts are the only available way of driving down church site maintenance costs by £15,000 to £35,000, as required by the council’s budget for the current financial year.

It warns the move could end up losing the authority money in the long-run, by leaving cemeteries open to grave-wreckers.

The Gazette told last June how a 16-year-old boy was handed an antisocial behaviour order, after crimes including attacks on 30 graves at St Michael’s Church in Mile End.

The report says gate-locking is to be axed at St Mary’s-at-the-Walls Church, home to Colchester Arts Centre, where there have been regular problems with graffiti and damage to headstones.

The grounds of St Martin’s Church, in West Stockwell Street, will be left open – even though it stands just yards from Castle Park where the council pays for gates to be locked every night.

The cost-cutting plan has been approved and will definitely go ahead unless opposition councillors use their powers to call it in, forcing a delay for further debate.