Fly tippers have 'no respect for the dead', Sheffield resident says after rubbish dumped at cemetery

Dozens of items of furniture including beds, cupboards and chairs have been dumped alongside household waste and even a motorbike in Darnall Road Cemetery on Coventry Road.

Local woman Lyn Kempton, who walks her dog in the cemetery, said the graveyard was no longer accepting new burials, but that the people who were interred there were still worthy of respect.

She said: “It is terrible. The graveyard is otherwise well kept and the graves are in good condition but it looks like someone has just had a spring clean and dumped all the rubbish there.

“Some of the gravestones are actually holding back the piles of rubbish from spreading further. Is there no respect for the dead any longer? It is disgusting.”

Lyn, who lives nearby on Staniforth Road, said everyone who uses the graveyard feels the same way, and it was ruining the previously tranquil nature of the area.

She added that facilities to dispose of household waste in the city did exist, such as tips and charity shops, and that the main reason people fly-tipped was simply laziness.

"When we moved out of a three-bedroom house into a smaller property you can imagine how much rubbish there was,” she said.

“But we took a lot of it to charity and took the rest to the tip. Which is what you are meant to do.

“And the council will also pick up bulky items as well.”

Lyn added that the problems in the area were not limited to the cemetery, and the streets of Darnall were almost as bad.

“It is not just the cemetery it is the whole of Darnall,” she said.

“I have never known such a messy place.”

Darnall Cemetery dates back to 1859, with the first interment taking place on August 12 that year.

The chapels that once stood there have been demolished but the graveyard is still home to 15 Commonwealth war graves of soldiers who served in the First and Second World Wars.