Unstable gravestones in cemeteries across Oxford are to be secured with wooden stakes as fears grow that a falling memorial could kill someone.

Caption goes here

Oxford City Council is about to begin work to test about 13,000 headstones at 14 burial grounds in the city.

It is estimated that as many as 20 per cent - or 2,600 - of the memorials could be unstable, with the potential to topple over without warning.

The council has opted to use wooden stakes to secure headstones, rather than laying them flat on the ground, a technique used by some councils which has upset relatives.

Last September, the Vale of White Horse District Council laid down 45 gravestones at St Lawrence's Church, in South Hinksey, without informing relatives, who thought at first that vandals were to blame.

The Oxford tests, which are due to start this month and will take until July, will cost more than £70,000. The sites affected are: Wolvercote, Rose Hill, Headington and Botley cemeteries; St Andrew's Church, Headington; St James's, Cowley; SS Mary and John, east Oxford; St Mary the Virgin, Iffley; SS Mary the Virgin and Nicholas, Littlemore; St Mary Magdalen; St Cross; St Giles; St Sepulchre's and Osney churches.

Jason Headley, the council's deputy parks operation manager, said: "Obviously unsafe headstones could result in fatality and while we're yet to experience something like that, this is a positive step in making sure cemeteries are safe.

Mary Clarkson, executive member for the environment, added: "Lots of councils have been doing this so we are trying to be a responsible authority, but the one area where we need to be terribly careful is contacting the owners.

"We will need to accept that for a lot of these gravestones contacting immediate family members is going to be near impossible - and we don't want to be pursuing people for money."

In 2003 Harrogate Borough Council paid £33,000 compensation to the parents of a six-year-old boy who died of head injuries after being hit by a falling gravestone in 2000.

Canon Richard Lea, the vicar of St Mary the Virgin Church, Iffley, said: "Personally I see nothing wrong with this, provided it doesn't cost the church.

"It's good that headstones should be kept upright."

The city council's executive meets on April 4 to approve a contractor to carry out the tests.