Council leader ‘optimistic’ Broxtowe’s cemetery rules finalised by September

In July 2024, it was decided that some items left in tribute to loved ones on graves in the borough would be removed due to maintenance difficulties and for health and safety reasons.

Rules allowing the items to be removed have been in place since 2009, but the bereavement service only updated its ‘Notice of Internment’ forms in 2023, prohibiting items such as fencing, bedding plants, vases, windmills, glass and alcohol.

In October 2024, bereaved families started a petition in response. That same month the council’s leader, Milan Radulovic (Brox Alliance) announced a 12-month suspension of the rules. A working group was set up with bereaved families to find a “common sense” approach.

Now, some nine months on, a resolution to the situation could be in sight.

A proposed set of rules from the group was set to be discussed in a cabinet meeting on June 3, 2025, and included hazardous items being removed from all graves, plots bought before August 2023 remaining similar and ones purchased after being allowed tributes within 2.5 feet from the front edge of the headstone plinth.

But the bereavement service rejected the new rules, saying some were “not acceptable” and stated the council had “inadvertently weakened its own position” by granting the 12-month suspension.

The cabinet chose to delay a discussion and vote on rules to a later date to allow more time for councillors, officers and families to go through reports and for it to go through scrutiny group meetings.

Since then, no formal date has been given for when the cemetery tribute issue would be resolved, and limited communication from the council has left families who are part of the working group ‘not knowing where they stood’.

Speaking to the LDRS, Coun Radulovic said he is “quite confident” the tribute item decision could be resolved by the end of September.

He said: “I’m optimistic we’ll have the report [from the scrutiny group] back by September and back to the cabinet to ratify scrutiny’s recommendations – and if necessary, cabinet can amend those recommendations.”

While Coun Radulovic could not give a definitive date or month for when the borough would see a change in cemetery rules, he said if the decision is delayed further than October – going past the 12-month suspension of the controversial rules – then he would extend the suspension.

Responding to the families’ concerns of not knowing where they stand, Coun Radulovic said: “[Families] are exactly where they should be as part of the consultation [period]. The scrutiny [group] take evidence from a number of parties – the families are one of them.

“We have to treat [parties] exactly the same [as one another] because it’s unfair for anyone to have undue influence in a consultation.

“Legislation is far too prescriptive, it doesn’t take into account people’s personal views on bereavement… it doesn’t allow them to grieve in their own way. That’s why we set up the working group.”

The council’s bereavement service was contacted for comment.