Preston Cemetery. Credit:Mal Fairclough Such incidents are disturbing enough in themselves but they have also drawn community attention to bigger problems with the design, construction and fitout of the third and final phase of the southern hemisphere's largest mausoleum. Concerns about the project - and a string of other issues around management of cemeteries in Melbourne's northern and western suburbs - have also been raised with Fairfax Media by a group of current and former employees of the Greater Metropolitan Cemeteries Trust. In the case of the Preston mausoleum, management is grappling with a headache inherited in 2010, when the Brumby government replaced a string of local authorities, including the Preston Cemetery Trust, with two mega-trusts charged with managing cemeteries in the city's north and south. Cemetery management acknowledges shortcomings with some crypts and their preparation by contractors in the third stage of the sprawling Bundoora complex, developed in recognition of the burial traditions of local families of southern European background, Italians in particular.

Stained crypts and water damage in the mausoleum. Credit:Michael Clayton-Jones The basement - the lower floor of the three-level complex - is closed off from the public; it is one of Melbourne's less celebrated secret places. Amid the spider webs and flying insects are hundreds of unused granite crypts, many damaged by flood, courtesy of building faults. Among a litany of problems are six giant stained-glass windows installed the wrong way around, so fixed louvres run into the building, rather than away from it. In the basement the extent of Stained crypts and water damage in the mausoleum. Credit:Michael Clayton-Jones flooding is evident from the water marks on crypt faces. The lift does not work. And on the ground is a muddied sign that long ago called for patience.

''Rest assured that on completion of these works the mausoleum will be maintained in good condition,'' it says. After a decade of deadline and budget blowouts, and with a legal battle brewing over liability, ''completion'' of this project is no sure thing. In early, confidential legal sparring, the City of Darebin is arguing that when the government seized the $34 million Preston cemetery asset, it also assumed its liabilities. Conceived in 2002 as an $18 million scheme to be finished in 2005, the cost has blown out dramatically, well-placed sources say. Current management is not prepared to estimate the likely final cost of the project. Who is to blame for the mess? It is hard to say. Sources familiar with the mausoleum's third stage say the project was cursed from the outset when Preston Cemetery Trust - Darebin councillors - decided to manage the scheme, rather than contract out responsibility and risk to a private company. The decision was a curious departure from the model successfully used to deliver the first two stages of the mausoleum.

Darebin councillors and council officers have come and gone, along with building contractors, engineers, architects, plasterers, stonemasons, plumbers, electricians, budgets and deadlines. Poor management of the project was highlighted in a 2006 auditor-general report that led to the Brumby government's revamp of cemetery management in Melbourne. Greater Metropolitan Cemeteries Trust chief executive Jacqui Briggs-Weatherill acknowledges that the likely additional cost of addressing the problems at Preston is not clear. Engineering studies are now under way to reveal the extent of the faults and to propose a solution. She confirms action against Darebin Council is likely. On the matter of the leaking crypts, Ms Briggs-Weatherill says the incidents have led to a review of burial practices. ''We have reviewed these incidents and made the appropriate changes to our procedures and practices, including bringing our crypt preparation in-house, to ensure peace of mind for our communities.'' She insists leakage problems have been ''resolved''. Despite the myriad ''challenges'', Ms Briggs-Weatherill says the building's third stage is structurally sound and the facility is in use on the ground and first floors, which ''currently are the final resting place for 95 people''. She says, in time, a solution will be found to remaining problems.

* Not her real name. The family who spoke to Fairfax Media did not want its real name mentioned because of the sensitivity of such issues within the Italian community.