Folks, looking for some guidance on this. Need to do a survey on a church property where the graveyard ends with a 20 metre cliff overlooking a river. The river is undercutting the cliff face and it is losing between 1 and 2 metres in a bad year. The cliff face is around 200 m in length. Various long term geotechnical solutions have been drawn up, all mightily expensive. In the short term though, I need to ensure the client is doing enough from an Occupiers Liability point of view. Would rope barrier and signage be sufficient or is something more robust required? Grave exhumation will be needed soon in order to relocate historic graves. This means the exhumers will be working on potentially unstable ground and use of an excavator is already considered a no no. Bear in mind this is a church and graveyard so money is limited and people will hold strong views. At the same time, its a 20 metre drop and unstable. If this was a construction site with work above a 20m excavation, there would be no questions asked, edge protection needed.

Sorry, should've read: I think that you are right to consider the viewpoints that people will have regarding this, but again in my opinion, PROTECTING the life of the people carrying out the work will always trump anything else!

thanks for the replies. Pretty much as I thought. Subject to approval by the geotech consultants I'm going to ask for temporary protection of work areas and then installation of a fence (in keeping within surroundings) to protect the public, to be installed at a point where the ground is deemed safe - e.g. not on any overhangs. Low level concrete protection works (on shore line) and stabilisation with nails and nets has already been costed and is in excess of £250k.