Aberdeenshire Council has launched a tender to fix at-risk graves in north-east cemeteries.
The bid by the local authority comes just weeks after vandals targeted gravestones at Balmoor Cemetery in Peterhead, causing thousands of pounds worth of damage.
The local authority has now asked contractors to come forward with offers to complete works on cemeteries across Aberdeenshire to prevent older gravestones from toppling.
On the Scottish Government’s public contracts website, the council have given firms until next month to make their best bids for the work.
Last night, a spokeswoman for the local authority said the council had a “duty of care” to ensure that cemeteries were safe for visitors.
“This is part of an ongoing inspection and stabilisation project for old gravestones across Aberdeeshire,” she said.
“We send out inspectors to look at gravestones – usually in the older graveyards – to ensure that they’re not dangerous. If they are, then we stabilise them because we have a duty of care to the public that might go into the graveyard.”
Vandals struck cemeteries across Aberdeenshire late last year.
In November, they daubed spray paint over three headstones at Elgin’s Linkwood Cemetery.
And a month later, they knocked over several headstones in Peterhead.
John Brownlee, chairman of Peterhead Community Council, said he was disappointed that damage had been done.
“It’s disgusting that anybody would do that sort of thing,” he said.
“It does happen from time to time across the country, but it is disgusting, totally unnecessary and absolutely ridiculous.”
Sandy Allan, the chairman of the port’s safety group, hoped the incident would be a “one-off”.
“There’s enough damage to these sorts of things without people doing it deliberately,” he said.