We must hope that spending cuts will result in the excision of not just waste but also the sort of local authority insensitivity which manifests as brainless heartlessness.
Here’s an example from Somerset as told by the Daily Mail:
Liz Maggs placed a 26-inch high wooden cross bearing a personal inscription on Rosemary Maggs’ burial plot at the Ebdon Road cemetery in Weston-super-Mare, while the family waited for a headstone to be made. But when Mrs Maggs, 43, returned to visit the grave … just a few days later she found the cross had disappeared … The authority said that because the cross stood about 2ft up from the ground it was a health and safety risk.
But it turns out that, though this was the pretext the council used, this wasn’t what they actually meant. It didn’t mean they they thought the cross presented a hazard to life, limb and the pursuit of happiness. No, what they were trying to get across was that this is a lawn cemetery; everything must be laid flat.
Ms Maggs was poorly advised by those with a duty to advise her. And by the example of many other wooden crosses in the same cemetery. Perhaps an example of belated, retrospective enforcement of regulations?
Whatever, a sorry mess. If you haven’t heard enough, find the whole sorry story here.
Hat-tip to Tony Piper for this.
