BRIDPORT’S woodland burial site has been branded an ‘overgrown disgrace’ by angry relatives.

They say the area has been left to run wild – with most of the graves now covered beneath a sea of grass and weeds.

Jill Tuck, from Allington, Bridport, whose twin brother John Rendell was buried there after he died, aged 69, three years ago, says it is ‘more like a jungle than a cemetery’.

But the town council, which operates the site, insists it looks exactly as it is supposed to.

Now Mrs Tuck and her husband Gerald are defying council regulations to strim the area every couple of weeks – just so they can see where her brother’s plot is.

She says they have been asking the council to cut the grass for months but every time they are told the workman is off sick.

“It is absolutely disgusting up there,” she said.

“We chose the woodland burial site because we thought it was such a lovely idea – to have the grave marked by a tree rather than a stone.

“This is absolutely terrible – it is supposed to be a woodland area not a mowing field which it is now. When I rang the council to say I could not see my brother’s grave any more they said I was not supposed to see it.

“I felt that was very unkind.

“Being twins, my brother and I were extremely close and I just feel awful about this – it’s like you forgot all about him. It is very disappointing.

“There are dozen of graves obscured by the long grass and weeds – you can’t get a mower in but it would not take long for them to strim it now and again.

“I had thought I would like to be buried here too but I certainly don’t want to if it is going to look like this. It could be such a lovely spot if it was kept really nice.”

Mr Chambers stressed a woodland burial site was not supposed to be a manicured cemetery – the idea was for it to be a free-growing open space.

He said: “The graves are not marked but we formally record where they are so that we can always find them. It is supposed to be a natural woodland and all we cut are the paths.”

He said that relatives were not supposed to mow the graves nor plant trees there ‘willy nilly’.

He added: “We are looking to set out a planting grid for trees and trying to formalise it but as for the graves they are supposed to be unmarked.”