Winter deluges seeing cemeteries reach “crisis point” in Stockton

A deluge of winter rain is leading to cemeteries across Stockton reaching “crisis point”.

That was the warning sounded by community services chief Jamie McCann on Monday following a string of storms hitting Teesside.

The Local Democracy Reporting service has told of the heartbreak and distress families have endured from flooded plots in Durham Road cemetery, Stockton.

Efforts to solve the troubles are continuing – with council officials seeking out a new cemetery site for western and central Stockton at the moment.

But Mr McCann warned the council’s place select committee how the situation was becoming dire.

He said:

“We’ve struggled with drainage in our cemeteries for a number of years – and it’s fair to say we’re probably getting to crisis point now with the amount of rain we see across the winter months.

“We’ve had some quite distressing situations where we’ve been digging graves and you can see them starting to fill up because the ground is so waterlogged.”

"Very distressing."

Thornaby cemetery has seen drainage trouble in the past year – with one-off funding of around £500,000 used to try and ease problems here and in other cemeteries around the borough.

A report prepared for the committee also warned how improvements were sorely needed.

It stated:

“Many of our sites were constructed many years ago and had minimal or no drainage.

“(This) has been compounded by a gradual increase in the annual rainfall level in recent years, resulting in an increase in standing water.

“Clearly, the site of graves with standing water is both very distressing for the bereaved and also causes significant operational problems for our cemetery staff who need to dig graves for burials.

“They are constantly fighting the elements, especially over the winter months.”

Cllr Mohammed Javed told the panel of a case where drainage problems had sparked a distressing situation at a recent funeral he’d attended in Thornaby.

The member for Parkfield and Oxbridge said:

“We’ve had a lot of complaints lately that when they’re digging graves, a lot of water is coming up.

“The last funeral I attended, it was really wet.

“What Muslim people do is they put the box in and wooden slates on the top, and then put the mud on the top.

“The mud was very heavy and it collapsed.”

In December, storms led to ground around the new Durham Road cemetery extension, in Stockton, becoming waterlogged.

Grieving mother Tracey Mayne labelled the ground a “glorified cesspit” after facing repeated problems at her son’s grave.

Officials will carry out drainage surveys in the coming months to line up more work this year – with cemetery path improvements and new walking areas between graves part of the borough-wide plans.

Mr McCann said people who’d attended funerals over winter months in recent years would have noticed things are getting wetter.

He added:

“This problem is being exacerbated.

“You see it more regularly and for longer periods of time, so there is a programme of work to see how we can try to address some of the issues of it being difficult to walk on, difficult to visit, and difficult to work in for the staff.

“I’m not saying it will be solved but we’ll be making progress in improving the situation.

“We’ll do the best we can.”

Meanwhile, the council says a shortlist for a new cemetery site will emerge “in the near future”.