THE Government is redrawing guidelines which have seen hundreds of gravestones toppled because of health and safety fears.

The move follows Wootton Bassett Town Council's controversial decision to remove and lie down 58 headstones and memorials after they were judged unsafe.

Swindon Council was criticised last year for strapping scaffolding to a number of headstones at its Whitworth Road cemetery.

Swindon widower Malcolm Hancock was distraught when he found his wife Margaret's memorial surrounded by metal poles and damaged by clamps.

Now, Constitutional Affairs minister Harriet Harman has written to a West MP saying that officials are redrafting the Government's health and safety guidelines. She was urged to act by Tory Weston-super-Mare MP John Penrose, following the removal of the headstones in Hutton's St Mary the Virgin Church.

Ms Harman said she was "disappointed" to hear of the case and said it will be used to inform the new national guidelines.

She said: "There seems to be a growing consensus that laying down unsafe gravestones should be a matter of last resort, especially since, as you say, this can create its own hazard.

"In the circumstances, it was disappointing to hear that some families were unaware of and distressed by the action taken, and that in some instances memorials were apparently laid down in a way that created further hazards."

"I am sure that, if there are lessons to be learned from the way the work has been undertaken in this case, the follow-up discussions will be an effective way to ensure that problems of this kind can be avoided in future.

"In the meantime, I have asked my officials involved in producing new national guidelines to take the experience of this case into account as the work proceeds."

In March, a Report by the Local Government Ombudsman said councils should not lay down gravestones as part of health and safety tests.

The report said that temporary supports should be used rather than laying the stone down.