A churchyard contaminated by drug addicts' needles has sparked a fresh controversy.

SS Mary and John churchyard in Cowley Road, Oxford, a favourite haunt of drug users and alcoholics, hit the headlines in the summer when soldiers volunteered to clean it up.

Now Oxford City Council is fighting moves to make it legally responsible for the upkeep of the three-acre overgrown churchyard.

The yard has no space for new graves - which means that under the Burials Act of 1853 responsibility for maintaining it falls on the city council. But the council's leisure committee wants to try to appeal against it because of the cost.

Three-quarters of the yard has not been maintained for years and has become dense woodland, with many trees needing major work.

The city council currently spends £7,000 a year managing eight disused churchyards.

Leisure committee chairman Bob Price urged colleagues to back an appeal saying: "If we do have to take it on, there are two elements - one is putting it right because there is a significant backlog of work, and then we have to maintain it long-term. "There is a danger that we will have to take over a very expensive project that we don't have sufficient resources for."

Soldiers from the Royal Pioneer Corps, based at Bicester, had to postpone their offer to help clean up the yard because of the Kosovo crisis, but may move in to tackle the job later this year.

Story date: Thursday 14 October

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