War graves may be lost as Church allows burials at unmarked cemetery
A LOCAL council is to be allowed to bury people in land containing unmarked war graves after a Church of England court gave its permission in what is being seen as a key test case.
Southwark borough council, south London, had received 660 objections to a plan that involved clearing scrub from land in Camberwell Old Cemetery that contained the remains of 48 soldiers from the two world wars.
The case, which is thought to be the first of its kind, will allow the council to bury 700 more people in the space and opponents claim it will be used as a “test case” to pave the way for other space-poor boroughs to do likewise.
Both the council and the Commonwealth War Graves Commission, which advised on the plans, said they would not bury anyone directly on top of a war grave. But the graves are currently unmarked, and locals are concerned the plan is not sufficiently respectful.
A spokesman for the commission said: “We have agreed with Southwark that war graves will not be disturbed during the process and that no burials will take place above the war graves.
“We only have responsibility for the war graves and these have all been identified and will not be affected by the works. We follow a similar process at other sites where the war graves are exempt from any re-use scheme.”
The site contains up to 48,000 burials, many of them poor residents in mass graves, and it is these that will have new burials made on top of them. The commission’s rules say war graves must be marked where possible. But in his judgment Philip Petchey, the Chancellor for the Southwark Diocese, suggested some of the graves could be left unmarked.
He said: “It occurred to me that in the present case it might be better for all 48 graves to remain unmarked both as reflecting the position at the time of burial and also as of now not seeking to make distinctions between the remains of those buried in the same area.”
Blanche Cameron, chairman of Friends of Camberwell Cemeteries, who have fought the proposal for several years, said they were not aware of the war graves until the church court’s ruling but was concerned that the commitment not to make new burials on existing war graves may not be kept.
“It’s a pretty serious aspect to come out this late in the day. The detail is not at all clear,” she said.
In a blog post the linked campaign group Save Southwark Woods said: “The lack of respect for the nation’s heroes is just one of many reasons why Southwark’s burial project is not fit for purpose.”
While the graves are not in a churchyard, some of the ground is consecrated, so the council had to ask the Church of England court for permission.
A council spokesman said: “The burial plots created mean that local people will continue to have the option to be buried in their local communities and avoid paying for more expensive burials outside of the borough.
“The council is considering all available options including re-use, which other councils have already done, but this will require public consultation.”
The capital faces a critical shortage of burial space and it has been legal to re-use graves in London since 2007, but the practice is still against the law in the rest of England. It has been legal in Scotland since March 2016.
Two London boroughs, Hackney and Tower Hamlets, have stopped burying people in their own land altogether. Residents have to go to neighbouring boroughs.
The City of London has already reused 1,500 graves in an effort to deal with the problem.
Tim Morris, chief executive of the Institute of Cemetery and Crematorium Management, said that burial policy needed reforming to give all councils permission to re-use graves.
“The law is a nonsense at the moment. We need to wipe it all aside and make provisions that prioritise the bereaved,” he said.