A Hornchurch man has found the burial place of his baby brother after a "lifetime of searching” is in a public grave soon to be mounded over.

Martin Anderson found the final resting place of his brother, who died in Forest Gate Hospital decades ago when he was three days old, a few months ago.

Mr Anderson said his parents “never recovered from not knowing what happened to him” and the family “now face losing him all over again”.

The planned redevelopment of a public graves area at Manor Park Cemetery will see four feet of soil put on top of existing graves to create space for new burial plots.

Headstones can be repositioned elsewhere in the cemetery when the work takes place at the public grave site, which is unpurchased land the cemetery owns where several unrelated people are buried together in mass graves.

“There are countless babies buried in these graves - for many years they were taken from their mothers and fathers and buried in unknown public graves, which was common practice years ago,” Mr Anderson said.

He added: “It's taken some of us a lifetime to trace our missing relatives’ final resting place, my own brother included.”

Mr Anderson said his brother is one of seven in the grave and the cemetery has confirmed to him it will be mounded over.

Manor Park Cemetery says it decided to reclaim an area of land in 2019 after taking advice from the Institute of Cemetery and Crematorium Management and consulting with the Ministry of Justice.

“This practice has been undertaken at the cemetery for many years and only occurs when 75 years has elapsed since the final interment,” a statement said.

The company's policy is to post announcements in the local press, on its own website and with prominent notices around the burial area some six months before any work takes place.

“Any relative who contacts the cemetery will be offered the option of repossessing the appropriate headstone or having it repositioned in an alternative space in the cemetery," the statement said.

“During the reclamation process, unclaimed headstones will be removed but no graves or human remains will be disturbed in any way.”

Four feet of soil is added to an existing three and a half feet of soil above the final interment, resulting in more than seven feet of “clean soil" for new burials, with no human remains disturbed.