THE Liberal Member for Northern Victoria Wendy Lovell has stated it’s time a representative from Greater Shepparton was immediately appointed to the Board of the Trust for the RPCV.
In the wake of another decision by the Remembrance Parks Central Victoria Trust that has left grieving Shepparton families heartbroken, Ms Lovell’s call comes after RPCV’s decision to change the style of headstone design for new grave sites at Pine Lodge Cemetery, replacing the traditional style of raised headstone with a flat piece of concrete that looks, and is treated like, a footpath.
Ms Lovell said she had been contacted by numerous families who have conveyed their devastation regarding the changes, that were made without any consultation whatsoever with the Shepparton community and no notification to families the headstone design would be different.
Families indicated to Ms Lovell that their departed loved ones had chosen Pine Lodge Cemetery as their final resting place because the uniformity of the raised and angled headstones that bear plaques for all that are interred there and because the cemetery was always kept neat and tidy. Ms Lovell said that one family had conveyed to her that their loved one had chosen Pine Lodge Cemetery purely because everyone interred there were looked upon as equal because of the uniformity of their plot, no matter their social status or wealth.
“The decision to change the grave designs to just a plaque lying flat on concrete without any consultation with families showed that the Bendigo-based RPCV Trust Board had no empathy or compassion for Shepparton families and was proof that a Greater Shepparton-based person needed to be appointed to the Board immediately to represent this community’s views,” said Ms Lovell.
