Cemetery Proposal

Published: 01 August 2019

The Parish Council wish to provide you with an update on the recent developments regarding the proposed new cemetery on the site adjacent to the allotments and to your property. As I’m sure you are aware the Council has been trying to progress this site over a number of years and the drainage of the land has proved to be a particular challenge.

Following the withdrawal of the planning application in September 2015 due to the Environment Agency (EA) requiring a Tier 2 groundwater investigation the Parish Council instructed that work to be done. The Tier 2 report was then passed to the EA for consideration. They concluded that if we wished to progress the site for full burials they would be unable to support a planning application that did not have a comprehensive drainage solution beyond simply land drainage.

The Parish Council instructed Clegg Associates Civil Engineers to produce an Options and Costings Report on the drainage solutions for the proposed new cemetery.

The report by Clegg Associates sought to give the Parish Council the options that would be approvable by the EA with whom the company had consulted and estimates of how much each option would cost.

Note: these estimates cover the drainage of the site and include infrastructure including access road, car park, fencing etc. but do not include any lighting.

Option A - Full Burial Ground with managed ground water system and pumped flow to foul sewer of all ground water £255,000 – annual cost £12,000.

Option B – Full Burial Ground with managed groundwater systems and full treatment prior to discharge into the water course £276,000 – annual cost £13,000.

Option C – Cremated remains burial ground with comprehensive groundwater drainage system £86,000 – annual cost £0.

The Parish Council discussed the above options on 14th January 2019 taking into consideration the estimated costs of the drainage systems and infrastructure and annual on-going maintenance costs in the context of the declining demand for full burial compared to cremation.

The ability to raise sufficient funds for Options A and B was discussed and Councillors concluded that they did not wish to burden the parish with the sizable loan that would be required, and the increase in precept necessary to generate enough funding was deemed to be unacceptable. Option C was considered to be affordable from within our parish council budgets, and it was therefore decided to pursue this option, though it was with regret that full burial provision would no longer be available within the Parish.

We hope that you are able to understand this decision and we would welcome any comments you may have which may be made through contacting the Clerk.