RELATIVES visiting the graves of loved ones in Great Malvern Cemetery are being faced with yellow and black hazard tape and the prospect of a large bill.

Malvern Town Council has already received ten complaints from families after ordering a safety test on gravestones and monuments - which a huge number have failed.

It says stones that show signs of give when 35kg of weight is applied have to be condemned and families face having to pay up to have extra pinning applied. In the meantime wooden stakes are driven in behind the gravestone and warning tape added.

The council says six people nationally have died from monuments falling on them in the last ten years and it has decided to follow health and safety advice.

Jena Clements, from Wiltshire, visited her mother's grave on Friday, which would have been her birthday.

She said her mother was buried in September and she was appalled to find the taped gravestone.

"My mother's stone is new and only two feet high - who is it going to hurt if it falls down? I think it is completely over the top," she said.

She has contacted her stonemason, Town and Country in Worcester, for advice.

Over more than a decade, owner Andrew Devereux has made many of the gravestones in the cemetery.

Mr Devereux, who has also contacted the council, fears that he will have an influx of customers demanding headstones he has made are brought up to the new safety standards for free.

He said: "The problem with this is that it looks very bad on stonemasons as it implies that we've not made the headstones properly. I've never had a problem with memorials falling down in the past.

"They were fixed to the standards required by the National Associa-tion of Memorial Masons and, as a member, I give a six year guarantee on them, but the goal posts have been moved in the last 12 months."

The council's acting-proper officer Richard Chapman said it was down to families to sort problem graves out.

He said: "You can't expect the local authority to pay for the upkeep of other peoples' property but we do have a duty of care to make sure public places are safe."