A PLAGUE of long-eared pests is causing headaches for staff at York Crematorium.

They say rabbits are demolishing floral wreaths and leaving decorative flower beds bare.

Crematorium bosses blame an invasion of rabbits for the lack of flowers at the Bishopthorpe parkland site and say they have "tried everything" to stop them.

The rabbits have developed a taste for the memorial garden's roses, leaving the white Yorkshire Rose bed almost bare during Friday's Yorkshire Day celebrations. Crematorium visitor Roger Dawson, of Old Earswick, said he was upset that his mother May, who died in October, 2001, aged 86, had no white roses in her memorial garden. The retired coach painter said his mother was a real Yorkshirewoman and would have been wearing a white rose on Friday "if she had still been with us".

However, crematorium bosses say a wide range of preventative measures employed so far have not worked, and they are still trying to halt the hungry rabbits.

They say their efforts to cull the pests have included spraying repellent chemicals to ward them off, raising flower beds to make plants inaccessible and installing fencing, but all have so far proved ineffective.

Mr Dawson said that there were as few as four rose flowers left among six raised flower beds at the crematorium site and the situation had improved little over the past six months. He added: "I try to be realistic and I realise that everything costs money, but if they can't afford to put in the flowers they should ask everyone to pay a little more for their service."

Dick Haswell, of City of York Council, who is responsible for York Crematorium, said staff were having an "absolutely horrendous" time with the rabbits nibbling flowers, wreaths and roses.

He said: "We are seriously struggling with the problem. We are aware of what is happening with the roses and it's a bitter disappointment for staff who replant flowers only to see them damaged irrevocably."

Mr Haswell said new rose plants would be put in during the autumn and workers would continue experimenting with different methods of stopping the rabbits.

Updated: 08:52 Tuesday, August 05, 2003