Dear All, 

I realise that there hasn't been an update for a while on the continued closure of the graveyard. I am sorry for this and for the whole situation. The lack of an update is principally because Lancashire County Council's tree team have given us practically nothing to update you with. Nevertheless, mindful how upset so many people are about this, I am writing to tell you as much as I can about what is being done to fix this situation. 

When, in mid-October, I left to go on a long-planned holiday, work was progressing at the site. After weeks of various people from LCC (not any of the councillors I should say) trying to claim that they didn't own the land and so were not responsible for making the trees safe, they finally did accept responsibility. This was after our Town Clerk requested a Land Registry search to find out the true owner of the land. Previously they had tried to credit Electricity North-West and English Heritage with the land. If the time spent trying to evade responsibility had been spent getting on with the job, I suspect that we would have reopened weeks ago. The problem is real. The tree limb that came down was massive, heavy and it was not the first incident of this nature. Many of you will recall that in October of 2022 a huge limb came crashing down, damaging the fence, destroying benches and covering graves. It is clear therefore that the trees needed to have work done on them before someone got hurt or worse in our graveyard. 

 

The work had started. And then, as many of you will have seen, it stopped. Tomorrow I will have been home for three weeks and I do not think that anything of any substance has been done at the site in that time. To date, no explanation for the stoppage and for the delay in restarting has been offered by LCC's tree team, either to me or to the Town Council. Nor has any apology been given. They have made things worse. They have smashed a hole in our fence, smashed flagstones underneath creating a number of serious trip hazards, they have destroyed benches and damaged a number of gravestones. I have received explicit promises in writing that they will fix these things and make them safe. However the incident where the worst damage occurred was over a month ago (17th October) and nothing has been done to fulfil that promise. Worse still, the state of the site on the People's Park side of the fence is terrible. You will have seen the logs dumped there and left. I walked around the site a few days ago with an experienced professional tree surgeon local to Kirkham who was horrified by the state of things. He identified safety hazard after safety hazard that no attempt has been made to address. There are no warning signs nor has any area been cordoned off. Someone tells me that there was some fencing at one point but clearly, this has now gone. The tree surgeon in question has taken a number of pictures, time and date stamped them and has offered to be an expert witness to the effect that, in leaving the site in that state, unattended for so long, the health and safety of the public is being compromised. 

I complained in one email to the Head of the Tree Team over a week ago. This produced a response which contained no apology, no date for restarting and nothing of any real use. I have replied as forcefully as I can while staying polite to the effect that it is not good enough. They have admitted that it is their job to fix, they have promised to do so but have stopped work, leaving the site in unsafe condition and nothing really has happened for weeks. I alerted them to the safety implications and even explained that our local tree surgeon has offered to do the job for them fully and completely in the next two weeks. I urged that they either pay him to do the job or get their own team to do it in the same time period. I suggested that we will look at legal action if they don't. This correspondence has now gone to our County Councillor and to our MP in the hope of gaining their help. 

I must state at this point that Kirkham Town Council are not to blame and have tried to help all they can. Liz Squires our Town Clerk has been a big help and Chris Hopkinson our Mayor has been supportive, asking to be copied into the email I sent to LCC's tree officer. Moreover, today I have heard from Councillor Stewart Jones, our representative on Lancashire County Council and am pleased to say that he is intervening to try to help as best he can. I am satisfied that he is treating the problem as urgent. Please therefore, if you wish to write to complain about the situation (which you have every right as concerned citizens to do) please do not attack, blame or have a go at the Town Council, Councillor Jones or me. If you wish to protest or complain, I urge that your complaint be sent to LCC and directed to their tree officer. I must say that at points, my wife has been subjected to horrendous verbal abuse from members of the public simply because she is the Vicar's wife. It left her frightened to leave the house and this is not acceptable. 

Thank you to the great majority of people who have borne this upsetting closure with patience and good grace. I fully understand how horrible it is not to be able to visit family graves. I am deeply conscious that birthdays and anniversaries of passing have been and gone for people and this has made it worse. No one at St Michael's wants the graveyard to be closed one minute longer than necessary. Experts have told me that there are around four tons of mostly dead weight overhanging the graveyard and that it is not safe for people to be in there. Plus the fence and parts of the path are unstable. Please, please, please do not try to get in until the work is finished! I am aware of people forcing their way in through the gap created where the fence has been damaged. I understand the temptation but I cannot stress enough that there is a very real risk of injury. We've locked the gates and posted notices. If you ignore my advice and go in and then hurt yourself, I regret that the church cannot and will not accept any liability for it. I would also advise people to stay away from the area in the park where the logs are and certainly to keep children away. I don't own that land - it is public land so I cannot tell you what to do. But, after hearing what the experts had to say about the condition of the site, I would strongly urge you to avoid the whole area. We're getting on at LCC's tree team, we're involving our elected representatives, we've threatened legal action and we've gathered evidence from experts. Everything we can do within the law to hasten them to finish the tree works, repair the damage and make things safe to reopen to the public is being done and I hope and believe that we will be open well before Christmas. 

Until then, church remains open for you to pray for people and to light candles in memory of loved ones. We will notify you as soon as things develop.

With thanks, apologies and best wishes,

Fr Richard