A COUNCILLOR is demanding urgent answers after waiting for two years to discover what happened to a memorial tree guard after a family member claimed the council lacked 'basic humanity'.

Valerie Halton raised her concerns after she was contacted by the son of the woman whose memorial has been lost by Redcar and Cleveland Borough Council.

The Guisborough ward councillor has been left frustrated by council staff as she continues her quest to locate the metal tree guards that were removed in 2012 when the local authority spent £35,000 sprucing up the town centre.

She said: "In July 2012, the resident whose family had bought the guard and dedicated the tree to their mother contacted me, he was quite upset about it being removed without any consultation with the family. They would have been happy to pay for the refurbishment and said they wanted it restoring."

Despite two years of trying, the councillor said no progress had been made and promised investigations had failed to materialise."

Speaking at a council meeting, the councillor challenged the council's cabinet member for environment and rural affairs, Councillor Christopher Massey, to resolve the issue and treat the family with some respect.

She read out an impassioned plea from the family saying: "The tree was a place where we remembered her and it was more significant to us than her grave. I also would have paid for its repair but was not given the opportunity. I fell the local authority have had every chance to resolve this. The officers and staff have failed to do anything.

"As you know I am supportive of the council and we appreciate that things go wrong and mistakes happen. It is the lack of respect, courtesy and basic humanity that has followed which makes me very dissatisfied. I also find the apparent dismissal of representations made by yourself, as an elected coucnillor, to be an affront to democracy and tends to suggest that officials of the council can do what they like with impunity.

"The public will not like this story and a council binning or selling for scrap, memorials paid for by relatives will be a very negative experience for some people."

Cllr Massey, acknowledging there had been some delays in the investigation, said: "An investigation is ongoing. I think it should be copncluded within the next month or two and a report will be brought before the council."