10,000 sign petition calling for action at flooded Handsworth cemetery

And leader of Birmingham City Council Ian Ward has now issued an official policy to the families of those affected by the flooding, saying he wanted to ‘place on record my regret for any upset that has been caused by these issues’.

The petition has now received 10,445 signatures, and calls for action to prevent yet more flooding occurring at the cemetery.

It was launched back at the start of October by Mohammed Ishtiaq after the site on Oxhill Road was flooded for the third time in a matter of months on October 3, with distraught relatives finding sunken graves and paths rendered a ‘mud bath’ following heavy rain.

Relatives used their bare hands and tools to clear the mud, unblock drains, build trenches and lay gravel and plastic sheeting back in October, with the council’s response blasted as ‘incompetent’.

Since the incident in October the council says it has spent ‘in excess’ of £50,000 on land drainage management at the site, with other works including the clearing of silt and residue from gulleys at the site.

However Mr Ishtiaq says he’s struggling to see where the money has been spent, and has again called on the council to do the ‘bare minimum’.

He said: “After burying my mother I went to visit the cemetery after a week and her grave was flooded. We made a number of phone calls to ask about it, and at the time they said they were still doing the work – and I didn’t feel satisfaction, I didn’t feel I’d been given the correct information.

“So I thought ‘hang on, something needs to be done here’ – so myself and all the families that were there set up a whatsapp group for our families. So we provided soil, we provided plastic sheeting to put on top of the grave, filled the graves that had actually sunk.

“I thought if we could get 3 or 4,000 signatures on the petition I’d be over the moon, and now we’ve got 10,500, which was a shock. And it just goes to show, with that many people signing the petition, that we need this dealt with. And all we’re asking for is the bare minimum – maintenance at the cemetery.

“The work that’s been done has just been done on one section. We’ve had four floodings in the space of six months."

Councillor Ward said that work was still ongoing on the site, and apologised to the families affected by the issues.

“I would like to place on record my regret for any upset that has been caused by these issues,” he said, in a recent meeting.

“There has been in excess of £50,000 expenditure at Handsworth Cemetery since the incident in August directly associated with land drainage management.

“All gulleys across the site have been cleared of silt and ensured that the drainage is free running. The final work on the gulleys and pipework is the removal of tree roots from the system.

“This should have been undertaken on 23 October, but the contractor failed to attend the site.

“An order is being placed for damaged kerbing and tarmac to be reinstated which will ensure water is channelled to the land drainage system and thereby away from any graves. Visits have been made to the site by the city council’s own land drainage experts and a detailed survey of the site is to be arranged subject to contractors.”

You can sign the petition here: https://www.change.org/p/birmingham-city-council-birmingham-city-council-to-protect-graves-of-our-loved-ones