Newsflash (17th May, 2023): Worthing Council has re-opened Heene Cemetery to the Friends group and to visitors. They have laid flat 17 memorials, each within the boundary of its existing grave plot, thereby removing the risk that they could fall and potentially injure someone. Their next step will be to try to trace the owners of each affected grave to make them aware of this action and to give them the opportunity to have the memorials reinstated. As that process unfolds, the Friends are free once again to visit the Cemetery and continue their work. Visitors have also been given permission to do so at the same time. Heene Cemetery will be open on Tuesdays and Saturdays from 2pm to 4pm.
Newsflash (10th April, 2023): the Council received the external contractor’s report on 4th April and on 5th April verbally assured the Friends that they would get an update within “the next 24 hours”. Since then, silence.
Newsflash (8th March, 2023): notwithstanding the ‘newsflash’ shown below, a Council officer has today confirmed that the full cemetery inspection will now take place on 14th March. Once the Council has received that external contractor’s report, a date will be announced for the re-opening of the cemetery.
Newsflash (23rd February, 2023): a Council officer has confirmed to the Friends that they intend to complete the inspection and temporary measures in the first seven days in March. “Once complete, access will be resumed”, we have been told.
The original story begins here:
Visitors to Heene Cemetery – and passers-by – will see that Heene Cemetery is temporarily closed. Worthing Council has fixed a notice to the cemetery’s gates explaining the situation.
Safety Inspections Underway notice on Heene Cemetery’s gates, February 2023.
In the week before this, the Council notified the Friends of Heene Cemetery and shortly afterwards published a press release on February 10th. It is worth reading.
On 13th February, the Friends sent the following email to the Council officer dealing with this matter:
Following a meeting of the Friends of Heene over the weekend, we would like to take this opportunity to summarise our response to the temporary closure of Heene Cemetery by the Council.
You are already aware of the vibrant and multi-stranded nature of the project centred on this small but special town-centre space. This year marks the 150th anniversary since its opening in 1873, an event that we plan to celebrate with much fanfare and a rolling programme of events, starting with an Open Day on March 18th.
Yet the weekly, nitty-gritty of activity that the Friends are involved in equally deserves the Council’s attention. We support by-appointment graveside visits by relatives of those who are buried there, as well as the more formal tending of the 8 Commonwealth War Graves, memorials to the ‘war dead’ and retired military personnel. There is also ongoing wildlife welfare, the cleaning and provisioning of bird feeders, and British Trust for Ornithology net-ring-and-release censuses.
Our activities have increasingly encouraged impromptu visits by members of the public on the Tuesdays and Saturdays when the Friends are present, and this has demonstrably been greatly valued. Heene Cemetery is undoubtedly now a community resource, not simply a niche interest by a small group.
At a different level, you may be aware of the tremendous work done by our heritage researchers who are working to write up the biographies of the 1,961 burials. Ninety percent of this has been completed and posted to our website. Alongside that, we have ongoing species surveys of this West Sussex Site of Conservation Importance, a process that with the help of more than a dozen subject specialists has identified over 500 different species. These too have been published on our website at www.heenecemetery.org.uk.
However, it’s vitally important that the Council appreciates that, while it quite rightly establishes for itself the extent of potential risk at the site, the Friends have for several years had in place a process of risk assessment that applies for both volunteer workers and members of the public. These cover a multitude of potential issues, including those potentially posed by memorial headstones and unstable ground. I attach copies of these.
In practice, these internal risk assessment policies require one member of the group on opening the cemetery to perform a visual check of the whole area for potential new hazards, notifying the group as they enter, and acting to minimise consequent risk. This is executed diligently. Members of the public are always asked not to stray from the paths, and we monitor this assiduously. Indeed, since the inception of the Friends only two very minor incidents have needed to be logged. Safety, we can therefore assure you, has always been a priority.
The closure of Heene Cemetery, however temporary it may be, while preventing these activities from taking place also removes important support that these activities lend to the Council itself, as follows:
- The regular presence of the Friends has, among other things, served to keep an eye on increasing dilapidation of the monuments, enabling the Council to have a first line of warning in place regularly. Losing that will not be to their advantage.
- The regular maintenance carried out by the Friends – always done after a risk assessment of those areas where work is being done – is helping the Council to reduce long term maintenance costs.
- The continuing (and as yet unfinished) program of heritage research is, as a by-product, helping establish the possible existence of monument owners. That may help reduce costs that would otherwise have to be borne solely by the Council. Please note that our heritage team is now offering this service to the Council for this exact purpose.
- Frequent and regular inspection by the Friends has helped clean the cemetery of rubbish and waste which unauthorised visitors (including rough sleepers) have left in the cemetery. Removal of that service will have potentially unpleasant longer-term consequences and costs.
- The Friends have hitherto notified Parks and Foreshore when trees and branches have needed attention, minimising risk to the public and potential damage to the Cemetery’s boundary walls. This needs to continue.
- At times of excessive drought and heat (such as in the summer of 2022) the Friends have provided an essential service in picking up broken glass that might – if left – have caused spontaneous wildfires (as happened at Broadwater Cemetery in mid-August 2022). A further service is provided by the Friends at such times in alerting the Council to the need to strim long grass to help minimise the risk of wildfires. As these heatwaves proliferate, a schedule for strimming long grass is often insufficient, and an emergency and unplanned cut can be needed. Leaving the cemetery untended, which is what will happen when the gates are locked, will aggravate this risk and one way or another it will need to be ameliorated for the safety of the surrounding residents.
As you can see, Heene Cemetery is a hugely important resource for the local community and for the Council itself. Its survival as such has been assured by dynamism and innovation, for what has been minimal cost to the Council. The proposed risk assessment, whilst thoroughly appreciated, needs to be completed in the most timely manner possible.
Our view is that the Friends of Heene’s track record demonstrates that once the Council has identified risk and moved to rope off specific and designated areas (and presumably then lift the risk level 4 designation), we have the experience and expertise to manage Heene being re-opened under our own close supervision, rather than being closed entirely for what may be a lengthy period, with all the neglect and increasing dilapidation that might ensue. The Friends can tailor activities to safely co-exist with specific roped-off zones, in a manner that might not be possible in other graveyards under the Council’s care. We therefore urge that the Council consider Heene Cemetery as a special case in the light of our proven expertise and track record.
Please keep us fully informed at each stage of the ensuing process and act to the best of your ability to secure the site and re-open it in a timely manner for the good of everyone involved.
Kind regards,
Email from Sue Standing (chairperson of FoHC) and Rob Tomlinson (secretary), 13th February 2023.
The sections marked in bold in the Friends’ email to the Council summarise the Friends’ position. For the moment, although this closure is temporary, no-one knows for how long the cemetery will be closed. We now wait in the expectation that the risk assessments can be accomplished speedily, any potential risks can be cordoned off pending a permanent solution, and that the Cemetery will once again be open for the benefit of all.