A COUNCIL is accused of having “total contempt” for the people it is supposed to serve by continuing to topple gravestones in the face of widespread protests.

Residents and bereaved families claim historic sites have been “desecrated” by Scottish Borders Council after stones were flattened for health and safety reasons.

A memorial to Scots literary giant James Hogg in the Ettrick graveyard was one of the stones pulled down and, although it has been re-erected free of charge by a local stone mason, the cemetery remains a “site of devastation”, according to nearby residents who are fundraising to restore it to its formerly scenic state.

Ettrick graveyard is Category B listed by Historic Environment Scotland while Coldingham Priory, where stones were also flattened, is listed Category A.

St Andrews Cemetery in Peebles, which is in a conservation area and is Category C listed, saw more than 600 stones flattened, with more scheduled to be pulled down this year.

However, a formal complaint that the council had sought neither listed building nor conservation area consent for the work has been dismissed by the council’s own Planning Enforcement department.

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Peebles resident David Brunton, who made the complaint, told the Sunday National he now intended to take the matter further.

“It seems to create a precedent that owners of listed buildings can do whatever work they want, claim health and safety reasons, and not have to report this work to planning retrospectively,” he said. “If an individual had caused this much damage, I am sure the conclusions would have been different.

“The fact that the council have restarted works and six of those cemeteries are listed and they have not obtained listed building consent for those, seems to show a total contempt for the people of this region.”

Brunton added that the council’s response indicated they were in agreement with guidance that individual notices should be posted beside stones identified as a risk and stones should be cordoned off until they were repaired – as is the practice in other local authority area.

“Yet they refused to do this,” he said. “They helped to develop the document, Burial Ground Memorial Safety Guidance for Scotland’s Local Authorities, but then failed to obtain consent, failed to contact Historic Environment Scotland, and failed to contact their own planning department retrospectively. In their response to me, they then state that ‘Listed Building Consent would ordinarily be required for at least some of the works undertaken’. That to me shows a total lack of management of this project.”

The Burial Ground Memorial Safety Guidance states: “If a memorial requires immediate action to make safe after an inspection, this action may be taken before formal consultation with lair owners. However, if

required, statutory consents or licences must always be obtained before direct action to a memorial is taken.”

A Scottish Borders Council spokesperson said: “In cases where memorials form part of a listing, either where sited within the curtilage of a listed building or if the memorial is individually listed, guidance makes reference to the need for obtaining listed building consent but also makes clear that public safety is an overriding consideration.

“Legislation and guidance from both Scottish Government and Historic Environment Scotland acknowledge that urgent works for safety reasons are inevitable and may require to be undertaken without first obtaining a Listed Building Consent. On occasion, it is not possible to seek an application in advance, given that the nature of the proposed works is not known and will not be known until after an inspection of a memorial has taken place.

“However, once an inspection has been undertaken and a memorial identified as being unsafe, the council are under an immediate obligation to make safe the memorial. That may not permit time for the normal application processes to be followed but neither does it mean that consent would not be granted, if it is required.

“Having considered all the circumstances, including the primary objective of protecting the public from danger, it is our view that the council acted in a proportionate way.”