ABOUT £130,000 is to be spent by Scarborough Borough Council on a survey to assess the state of hundreds of old gravestones in its cemeteries, and to carry out repairs.

It follows the death of a toddler who was crushed when a gravestone fell on him in Harrogate last year.

Steve Oldridge the authority's environmental health director said action would be taken where gravestones , some dating back 150 years, were deemed to be a dangerous state.

Measures are likely to include laying headstones flat and making families of people buried in the council's graveyards responsible for the upkeep of the stones after a 30 year period.