A RELATIVE of a family buried in an overgrown cemetery has been left feeling like she’d “won the lottery” after a community payback team pledged to save it from disrepair.

Lancashire Probation Trust has decided to take on the massive project to restore New Row cemetery in Blackburn after Jean Holt, 66, contacted the Lancashire Telegraph.

She had been left ‘soul destroyed’ after finding unkempt grasses had made access to her grandfather and grandmother’s graves impossible.

Now the three-acre cemetery, which lies next to an abandoned chapel recently put up for sale, is set to be the focus of a makeover by a team of offenders from the Blackburn area who will work to clear the grasses, remove weeds and clean headstones.

It is expected that it will take them several months working one full day a week to make the cemetery on Heys Lane, Ewood easier for relatives to visit.

Mrs Holt, who lives in Brierfield, said: “I’m thrilled to bits and it feels like I’ve won the lottery.

“It means so much to me that soon I will be able to visit the graves easily and it’s also a lovely sign of respect to my mother who had asked to be buried on the site.”

Lorraine Slater, Lancashire Probation Trust practice manager for Community Payback, hopes that the team will be able to make some difference.

Ms Slater said: “It is very overgrown so it will take a lot of work but we hope to tidy it up a bit so people can get to the graves.

“The project will benefit the offenders because they will get horticultural skills as well as improve team work and work ethics.”

Former New Row voluntary maintenance worker, Paul Eckersley, has also placed a callout for equipment to help him continue to maintain some graves voluntarily.

Mr Eckersley, who lives in Stephen Street, Mill Hill, used to tend the graves of elderly residents unable to maintain graves on their own.

However a theft of his equipment several months ago left him unable to continue the role He said: “Whatever items people could donate to me, anything from strimmers to sythes, would help me pick up my role again and will be very welcomed.”

Anyone who would like to donate gardening equipment to Paul can contact him via email at: elizabeth.eckersley@hotmail.com.