BURIAL AUTHORITY

Question

When our local churchyard closed the PC bought some adjacent farmland  and became a Burial Authority .  Recently some burials had to be suspended because of flooding so we paid £5k for a survey to tell us we bought a boggy field.  They have now suggested several possible  remedial but expensive steps.  We currently bury only 6 people a year as most opt for cremation.  Does a burial authority have to offer a burial option ?

Answer 1

Er ... why did the council buy a piece of land which appears to be unfit for purpose and for which there seems to be little or no demand?

Comments

Never has the phrase "it seemed like a good idea at the time" been more appropriate!

Answer 2

I believe that you would need to apply to the Privy Council for an Order in Council to close the burial ground, assuming that you went through the full process of planning consent and registration when you opened it. This appears to apply equally to civil burial grounds and those attached to a church.

Have you considered alternative solutions, such as tree planting to lower the water table? This could be either a woodland burial approach or a more formal tree-lined layout.

Out of interest, did the churchyard close because it was full?

Comments

The churchyard was closed back in the 1970s .  While it is difficult to be sure there are several indicators that it is well drained .  At that time a bit at the bottom of the existing churchyard was bought along with an adjacent field .  To date the bottom bit has been utilised with no problems but recently we started to use the adjacent field  and have experienced flooding problems.  In this regard I note your absolutely correct "hindsight is a wonderful thing " comments. It also seems over the years when we had GPC the answer was to throw money at the whole subject and I have challenged some aspects of this. But we are now in new territory and I am trying to understand the options as my understanding is that under Common Law residents are entitled to be buried in their own churchyard . Problems problems