I would like to thank The Argus for its help in bringing to the public's notice Lewes District Council's policy of mass flattening of graves.

A headstone is so many different things, not just a marker of the final resting place of a loved one but a tangible place to remember a whole life now passed and the final tribute to someone dearly loved.

As a stonemason with nearly 30 years' experience, I have seen many changes, most definitely not for the good.

While nobody would like to see any accidents at all concerning memorials, I was stunned by the council's insensitive attitude to grieving relatives and the scale upon which this has happened makes it even worse.

While other cemeteries also use the topple-tester, how can it be that only Lewes and Seaford have such a number of failures? Could it be the zeal with which the council is applying the testing is more rigorous?

The test as administered is supposed to exert a force of 50kg to the top face of headstones but a new suggestion by the Association of Burial Authorities is likely to be 150kg (21 stones).

At this pressure, virtually all present and past memorials would fail.

Could it be the council's main priority is to make sure it is not left open to being sued under any circumstances, rather than the feelings of relatives, which seem to have taken second place?

I understand the council intends to widen its activities to churchyards where many historically irreplaceable memorials will come in for the same treatment.

Having worked on many of the memorials in the book Dead And Buried In Sussex by David Arscott, it saddens me to think, if the present "money over common sense" attitude continues, many of these fine monuments will disappear.

Making things safer needs to be done in partnership with everyone concerned - councils, undertakers and stonemasons - and not as a panicked response to the times we live in.

Lastly, let nobody forget we in the cemetery and memorial trades have a moral duty to make what is already one of the most stressful times in anyone's life as dignified as possible.

-Chris Groom, Richmond Road, Brighton