A VERY interesting piece of work by Councillor Watt to form a group to help out in the Beath Cemetery.

To be honest what we have seen in Cowdenbeath's cemetery is something that can be seen all over the county.

The problem is simply that Fife Council has had to trim their budget to such an extent the teams that look after these important facilities have been slimmed down considerably.

It means that it will be inevitable that families are disappointed by often what they find when they go to visit the grave of a relative.

I visit the grave of an aunt who was very dear to me and I enjoy making these visits every few weeks or so. The conditions at the cemetery during the summer were determined by warm days and a lot of rain which made the grass grow quickly. So that meant things did become a little untidy at times and when you combine that with bins filling up quickly it can lead to somewhat a dispiriting scene.

However, the council's simple problem is lack of staff, the organisers of the teams must be at their wits end trying to cover the county's cemeteries with a fraction of the staff they had a few years ago.

I take my hat off to Councillor Watt and his colleagues, I hope they enjoyed themselves on Sunday and their efforts will help people to enjoy their visits to Beath Cemetery more.

In the long term though the council needs to get more funds into its kitty one way or another to help services such as the cemeteries and grass cutting in general.

After all some pavements carry more grass than they used to and that is another thing that has suffered in this tight time. So over to Holyrood.

BEATH CEMETERY VISITOR,

High Street,

Cowdenbeath.