A DUMFRIES woman has slammed Dumfries and Galloway Council for failing to maintain grave- yards where her loved ones are buried.
The woman, who asked not to be named, visited Troqueer cemetery and Dumfries High cemetery on Father’s Day to lay flowers on her son’s graves.
But she became horrified upon realising that unkept grass was covering up many of the headstones in the burial grounds to the point inscriptions could not be read.
She said: “It’s been cut, the grass in front, but the grass round about the headstones themselves has not been touched. I even saw some of the smaller headstones with the grass growing above them; I mean come on, there’s no need for that. That’s down- right disgraceful, I’ve been in other countries that are poorer than ours and that’s one of the things they take heed of – it’s a sacred place for people to go and visit.”
The woman said she often visits the cemeteries but has “never seen it in such a state like that before”.
She continued: “They cost a lot of money, the bunches of flowers that I go and buy – I don’t buy rubbish to make them look really nice. But if you’ve got weeds and grass growing that height, nobody’s going to see those at all and it’s not going to be very nice looking.”
She added others who were laying flowers on Father’s Day also commented on the state of the graveyards.
“I spoke to two of the women,” she said, “and they said it was a disgrace, they were complaining about them as well and I said there’s going to be nothing done if we go straight to the council because I’ve complained about other things in the past to the council and there’s been practically nothing done.
“If they’re doing cutbacks, I think they need to realise where the cutbacks should lie, because that’s one of the places you wouldn’t think they’d make cutbacks on – a place that’s so sacred to people.”
Dumfries and Galloway Council failed to comment.
