A council committee has opposed a plan to stop families leaving flowers around memorial benches.
A controversial revision to Barrow council’s memorial bench policy would see tributes removed from seats on land owned by the local authority.
The revision also states that no new benches will be permitted around the coastline of Walney due to the volume already in place.
Cllr Bill McEwan expressed opposition to the tributes ban at Wednesday’s meeting of the overview and scrutiny committee.
He said: “We get enough stick as it is. We will get it in the neck as an uncaring council, it’s a dodgy situation, this.”
Cllr Colin Thomson pointed out that families only tended to leave tributes at particular times of the year, such as anniversaries and birthdays.
“I can’t see anything wrong,” he said.
Walney councillor Frank Cassidy said it was the expressed wish of the Biggar Bank community group and Walney residents that no more memorial benches should be installed along the seafront. He said the community group had held numerous meetings to find out public opinion.
“There is now a high number of benches that have invaded our green space,” he said. “We acknowledge that it is a delicate topic. Memorial seats can be placed elsewhere in the borough.”
Council leader Ann Thomson explained prior to the meeting that tributes were ‘subject to the weather, can present a hazard and can deteriorate quickly’.
In a report produced ahead of the meeting, Chris Pollard, the council’s cemeteries and crematorium manager, advised the committee to consider the revised memorial bench policy and ‘make recommendations to executive committee for adoption’.
But councillors decided to recommend to the executive committee that the placing of flowers be permitted – excluding cellophane.
Alongside the ban on further benches along Walney’s coastline, a number of other revisions to the memorial bench policy were endorsed by the overview and scrutiny committee.
The revised policy states that new benches will be made from recycled plastic rather than hardwood, that any unauthorised benches will be removed, and that the fee – £680 – for a memorial seat including a plaque is to be subject to any annual increase in line with the council’s fees and charges.
