Moves to combat cemetery vandals

Families will breathe easier knowing the graves of their loved ones will be more secure as Geraldton Cemetery Board begins the next stage of beefing up perimeter fences at Geraldton Cemetery, Utakarra.

The Board will spend $60,000, half of which comes from round 17 of community grants from the City of Greater Geraldton, to upgrade a section of fencing which it hopes will deter vandals and protect graves from desecration.

Contractors will begin work next month, erecting a section of 1.8m high steel palisade fence to complement existing fencing on the cemetery’s Abraham Street boundary.

Board chairman Max Correy said the work would improve the appearance of the entrance to the crematorium and car park, which was used frequently by visitors, and prevent unauthorised access to the cemetery which sometimes led to vandalism.

“We have done all we can to prevent people accessing the grounds as a short cut; they cut holes in the fence and when staff repair them, they simply cut another hole somewhere else,” he said.

“We wouldn’t mind too much if people only used the cemetery as a short cut, but families and our ground staff have suffered much damage and angst with the amount of vandalism that occurs with people accessing the grounds from both Abraham and Alexander streets.”

He said the community was outraged after vandals smashed ornaments and graves in November, 2014, and the Board began to seek ways to access community funding to improve the security of the property.

Mr Correy said repairing damage to fences and graves was time consuming and took staff away from their core business of maintaining the grounds and attending to cremations and burials.

He said there had been less vandalism since the Board installed sections of steel fencing and temporary high tensile wire fences in the past 12 months.

Existing fences will be replaced with steel fencing to extend around the entire perimeter of the operational part of the cemetery and crematorium over the next few years.

The Board is also finalising quotations in readiness to call for tenders for a new condolence lounge near the crematorium.

That project, which will also include the installation of a larger cremator, was made possible with $1.362 million of Royalties for Regions funding obtained through the Mid West Development Commission.