COUNCIL bosses have been slammed for letting the final resting place of 90 soldiers turn into an overgrown mess.

They have been accused of a lack of respect for the dead over the neglected state of Darwen Old Cemetery.

The majority of graves are covered in weeds and long grass, surrounded by civilian graves laid flat by the controversial topple testing health-and-safety policy. One of the worst affected graves is that of Staff Sergeant Frank Heathcote ofthe Royal Army Ordinance Corps.

He was killed on August 1 aged 28. His grave is over-run by three-foot high grass and weeds.

Another is the grave of Thomas Henry Orrell, a First Class Aircraftsman of the Royal Air Force Volunteer Reserve. He died on January 21, 1944 aged 54.

The grave of Private W Bending of the East Lancashire Regiment is similarly over-run and neglected.

He was killed on July 24, 1917 aged 26, leaving behind a wife, Agnes, at 17 Sydney Street, Darwen.

The War Graves Commission visits the site every 18 months to two years to carry out maintenance work.

Councillors and war veterans have hit out at the council for letting the area become so overgrown in between these visits.

Council bosses said the cemetery was on a ‘continuous cycle of mowing’.

Bui Town councillor John East, a historian who is leading the clean-up campaign, said: “As we approach Remembrance Day and with the passing of the last First World War veteran, there has been a lot of concern about the state of Darwen Old Cemetery.

“It needs a vast amount of improvement and several people are concerned about the respect being shown to the dead servicemen.

“We are looking after the living, but we also need to look after the dead and show them our respect.”

Mr East has joined forces with councillors Stephen Duncan, Karimeh Foster and David Foster over the issue.

They want to form an action group aiming to get people to adopt a grave and maintain it and plan to work with the Princes Trust, the Parks Department at the council, the Civic Society, Friends of Whitehall Park, the Royal British Legion and local schools.

Whitehall councillor Karimeh Foster said: “I am concerned about the terrible state of the cemetery.”

Marilyn Bysh of Darwen Civic Society said: “The old cemetery is in a bad way. If these graves were in a war cemetery they would be looked after properly.

“Just because they’re old doesn’t meant that the council shouldn’t maintain them.”

Coun David Foster, deputy leader of the borough council and a Darwen councillor, acknowledged the problems, but said it ‘was never going to be a number one priority for the council’.

“However, I think we need to look at ways to keep it looking decent, and a ‘Friends Of’ group is one way of doing this”, he said.

Every November the British Legion place a poppy on each grave of first and second world war soldiers.

President of the Darwen branch of the Royal British Legion, Bryan Thompson, said: “It’s important that we keep the graves in a good condition to respect the war dead.

“Most of our members are in their 70s, so we’re not able to be as physically active as we once were, but I should think the council have a responsibility to maintain them.

“I know that the War Graves Commission comes to inspect them every so often and if they’re not acceptable, then whoever is meant to be in charge gets the bullet.”

Peter Hunt, director of regeneration and environment at the council, said Darwen Cemetery was more hilly than others in the borough so staff had to use strimmers to cut the grass back.

This meant it took longer to cover the whole of the cemetery, he said.

Mr Hunt said gardeners last visited the cemetery last week to cut back some of the most hilly parts.

He could not confirm how often Darwen was cut compared to other areas because they said it was on a “continuous cycle”.

Mr Hunt said: “We recognise that this is an important service and will continue the mowing programme throughout the rest of the season.”