VILLAGERS are asking a local authority to help maintain a County Durham cemetery that contains war graves.

St Paul's churchyard, in Quarrington Hill, has become so overgrown with weeds that residents are volunteering to tidy it up themselves.

Villager Billy Jones, 66, said Durham City Council pledged to cut the grass, but has not been keeping its side of the bargain.

Mr Jones said: "It is disgraceful because there are soldiers here who died in action during the First World War.

"People here are ashamed of the state it has got into but the council don't seem bothered about it."

The cemetery has a number of tributes to local men who died fighting and are buried in France and Belgium.

Coxhoe Parish Council vice-chairman Fred Burn said the city council could not cut the grass until it had formally been handed over from the Church and the parish council's responsibility.

He said this could not happen until the family plots in the lower part of the cemetery were full. Councillor Burn added: "This has come about because it is not a closed cemetery.

"We are working towards a solution for this ongoing problem."

A spokesman for Durham City Council said it was looking closely at the situation.

He said: "We hope to resolve it soon."