A young woman who laid her two-hour-old baby to rest in the town’s cemetery has been left devastated after being told she has to remove decorative items off the grave within days.
Portia Wright, 21, of Copthorne, and her partner Simon Wagstaffe buried their only son Cei in the children’s area of Shrewsbury Cemetery in February and have tended the grave with plants, soft toys, and ornaments ever since.
Miss Wright said she had been instructed to remove white picket fencing a foot high and stone chippings from the edges of the grave for health and safety reasons.
She claimed that Shrewsbury and Atcham Borough Council – which owns and maintains the cemetery – had written to her to say they would be turfing the grave over in October.
But SABC officers have insisted the turfing will not be done until the spring and have said certain ornaments will be allowed to remain.
Miss Wright said: “It just does feel like I’ve lost all right to grieve as a parent for my son because he wasn’t here for very long.
“I didn’t have a chance to do anything for him when he was here and I can’t do anything for him now he’s gone.
“I wanted to personalise that grave for my son – I wanted it to be Cei’s area.”
David Wraith, environmental health manager responsible for bereavement services at SABC, said: “We’ve asked her to remove the stone chippings around the plants, a little picket fence and two solar lights for health and safety issues.
“We have to use a strimmer between the grave stones and if it picks up a stone it will be like a bullet hitting somebody and could seriously injure someone or cause damage to other people’s headstones.
“Ornaments on the head stone we have no problem with for the time being, as long as they’re kept within the constraints of the headstone area.
“It is not a forceful letter and we have had her co-operation and are now asking for it to continue. We have agreed that turfing will be done in the spring.”
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