Legal News

In re Hutton Churchyard, Somerset; [2008] WLR (D) 355

“Where responsibility for maintenance of closed churchyards had passed from a parish council to a local authority pursuant to s 215(3) of the Local Government Act 1972 a parish council retained sufficient interest to intervene in faculty proceedings concerning the laying flat of memorials in the churchyards. The duty of ?maintenance of the churchyard? imposed on the local authority under s 215(3) was the same as the duty to keep ?in decent order? imposed on the parish council under s 215(1) of the 1972 Act. Where memorials had been laid flat this included an obligation (1) to take into account as a primary consideration the safety of memorials (2) to consider as a factor the appearance of the churchyard, but a district council was under no duty to reinstate memorials it had laid flat because of the appearance of the churchyard.”

WLR Daily, 13th November 2008

Source: www.lawreports.co.uk

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