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Tourists could soon be dying to visit Capital's cemeteries PDF Print E-mail
Written by DeadGirl   
Thursday, 27 July 2006
MICHAEL BLACKLEY 

SCOTLAND--CALLS have been made for the city council to invest more money in repairing the Capital's crumbling graveyards - and turn them into a tourist trap. Longniddry-based writer Michael Turnbull, who prepared a guide to the city's graveyards, said Edinburgh should follow Glasgow's lead in making cemeteries more attractive places for tourists.
A team of 80 park rangers look after the graveyards of Glasgow on a daily basis and part of their duties is to provide free tours of some of them up to three times a day.

But in Edinburgh, no free tours are provided by the city council and no leaflets are produced informing visitors of the famous people who are buried within the city's boundaries.

In total, only £1.1 million has been set aside to look after Edinburgh's 39 council-run graveyards in the next year, which works out at £28,205 per cemetery.

Mr Turnbull, who wrote the Edinburgh Graveyard Guide and is currently researching a Glasgow version, believes that is not enough.

He said: "You often find empty beer cans in graveyards across the city, and people often spend the night there. There is also drug-taking that goes on and even things like prostitution. You name it, it happens. They are just not safe places to be.

"We need to get income for these because they are in quite a state of disrepair. But in Glasgow these problems aren't as bad because they have a system of park rangers who patrol the cemeteries and also give guided tours up to three times a day.

"I once advertised a free tour of Greyfriars and I got 100 people. There is huge interest in graveyards and it would be good for the city if they took advantage of it.

"These are all people who have helped make the city what it is in these graveyards and these places need to be well looked after.

"They could be one of the city's big assets - there's the architecture, wonderful carvings, portraits, sad stories, quirky tales . . . they've got the lot."

His views are supported by Councillor Alastair Paisley, the Tories' economic development spokesman at the city council.

He said: "Edinburgh city cemeteries have been badly neglected for a number of years.

"They have laid down all the stones for health and safety reasons, but they've made no budget to replace them, unlike other councils.

"People go to cemeteries to find out a bit about the history of families and search for roots and that is a very big industry at the moment.

"Edinburgh could do something to promote and protect the cemeteries in the city because of their historical interest.

"There are so many historical connections and there is growing interest for people to look at this. Much more should be done to promote what we have."

The city's tourism leader Councillor Ricky Henderson said action was possible.

"I think, for some people, graveyards are fascinating places. Some of the older ones in the city centre are very important places and they are all part of the city's historical past.

"It is an area of interest and I'm sure the council would be happy to explore it if there were ways to take advantage of that."

A council spokeswoman said: "Services for Communities has an approximate budget of £1.1m for the current financial year (2006/7) to look after the 39 cemeteries and churchyards in the city.

"This figure is for maintenance and operational requirements such as grave-digging.

"The Services for Communities budget is for the maintenance of cemeteries, but it does not include the repair of individual monuments - this is the responsibility of the executors of the deceased."

http://news.scotsman.com/scotland.cfm?id=1090532006
 
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