Bega Valley Shire Council has issued a public apology after removing flowers from grave sites at Bermagui Cemetery.
The council’s phones have been busy and local social media chat groups filled with complaints from upset relatives.
The council issued a statement saying sorry.
“Our team had recently arranged a contractor to go to some maintenance work at the Bermagui Cemetery and part of that was to sort of tidy the whole place up,” General Manager Anthony McMahon said.
“Those people that attend there regularly will be aware that as part of that they’ve also cleaned up some of the flowers and plastic flowers that were there too at some of the sites, which has obviously caused quite a bit of distress,” he said.
“I think in fairness to the contractor, it was on the basis of direction that we’re given to go, you know, and sort of tidy things up.
“We definitely overstepped with some of those locations that were touched and going forward, that practice is definitely going to change. It should only be things that sort of pose a safety risk to other people attending the cemetery that should be addressed in the way that things were last time.”
