A MEMORIAL to psychiatric patients who were buried in unmarked graves is being tidied up following a complaint from a former hospital employee.

The Northern Echo led a successful public appeal for a memorial to former patients of Winterton Hospital five years ago.

But Christine Blakey, who worked at the hospital, claimed the memorial in Sedgefield cemetery was not being looked after and said the area around it had been allowed to fall into a state of disrepair.

Mrs Blakey said: "When I looked at it six or seven weeks ago, it had a little box hedge around it which didn't look very nice. They've now dug the hedge out and grassed it over, but it's not being looked after. It looks horrible.

"There were some flowers around it originally and they've still got the four little tubs there, but they've never done anything with them.

"They should be keeping it nice and putting flowers around it. I worked at Winterton and it was supposed to be a memorial not just to patients, but to staff who had died as well."

A spokeswoman for Sedgefield Town Council said village gardeners had started to tidy the memorial.

She said: "They are getting the unsuitable planting out and making it into a better shape, and we are going to plant some bulbs when we get the tubs sorted out."