I agree with Maurice Lawson that it is morally wrong to destroy the graveyard at the former Lee Lane United Reformed Church, in Horwich, contrary to the covenants in the deeds ( January 30).

I also support Mr Lawson’s contention that the United Reformed Church’s North West Province is primarily to blame for releasing the developer of the apartments from the obligation to maintain the graveyard and allow people access to graves.

It is common knowledge that the developer has removed gravestones and obtained permission from Bolton Council to surface part of the graveyard for use as a car park.

The developer earmarked the surface directly above my grandparents’ grave to locate the refuse bins!

But the ailing, cash-strapped church’s betrayal of its former members is only one of many alarming factors in this appalling episode.

When Horwich town councillors discussed the developer’s application, they expressed no concern for the feelings of the relatives of people buried there. One or two councillors were alarmed at the potential loss of a whitebeam tree — but not at what was to happen to the graves.

And when Bolton councillors visited the site, they were unwilling to heed relatives’ pleas for gravestones to be laid flat in an inconspicuous part of the graveyard. Instead, they meekly succumbed to the developer’s objections to that idea.

The whole affair emphasised the growing frailty of our so-called democracy. No councillors expressed dismay over what was happening. Councillors and MPs appear just to be rubber stamping bureaucracy.

Despite all today’s ballyhoo about human rights and non-discrimination, we have a situation in which your loved ones’ graves and gravestones are safe in an Anglican churchyard but not in a non-conformist one.

Thank God that these are relatively trivial matters for the Christian in this passing age.

Brian Smith, Horwich