Airdrie & Coatbridge Advertiser
Cemetery plans dead after vote to keep pitches
Plans to expand a Coatbridge cemetery into neighbouring open space have been halted after a majority of councillors voted the land should be restored for use as sports pitches.
Coltswood cemetery is projected to run out of developed lairs in six years’ time, and North Lanarkshire members had previously agreed that it should be extended onto the adjacent recreation ground, accessed from Morven Street.
However, opposition councillors on the finance and resources committee last week blocked the required transfer of the land – with both SNP and Conservative members gaining a majority in a vote, supporting local members’ calls to redevelop the ground and its changing rooms.
Allan Stubbs, the Co a t b r i d g e No r t h councillor, says the town has lost too many recreation facilities, meaning there is insufficient provision for local teams.
And while supporting the need for extra cemetery space, h e b e l i e v e s land needs to be found elsewhere.
However, council l e a d e r Jim L o g u e called the amendment “irresponsible” and “very short- sighted” – saying Coatbridge families will be adversely impacted as there are no other suitable sites for local cemetery provision, and that there is no planned funding for any pitch improvement project to take place.
The cemetery is projected to run out of lair space in 2026, but the proposed extension would have created sufficient capacity to last a further 25 years.
Councillor Stubbs told the Advertiser how he and SNP ward colleague Kirsten Larson have been regularly contacted by sports teams unable to make bookings for available local pitches.
He said: “It’s not that we don’t want the cemetery to have more space, but we can’t just keep closing down sports facilities without a concrete plan for how to replace them.
“Officers will need to go back to the drawing board and find other land which can be used for a new cemetery.
“Coltswood isn’t that old – why was it identified for a cemetery if it was only going to last 20 years?”
Councillor Stubbs added: “We’ve asked the ground be turned back into a usable pitch; the only reason it seems not to be in demand is bookings aren’t taken, but people want to be able to do so. We can’t have the loss of yet another football pitch in Coatbridge; people can’t get bookings and are having to travel further to play games.
“As good as the facilities are at St Ambrose High, there are less than half as many pitches available as there used to be at Espieside and this one at Morven Street isn’t surplus.
“Pitches and open ground can be an easy target – this time it’s for the cemetery, next time it could be for
housing, and we can’t take something away without a plan for how to replace it.”
Councillor Logue said the majority decision had “torpedoed” long- term plans for Coltswood and called the vote “a sad day for Coatbridge”.
He said: “We’re running out of facilities for burials in the town and the cemetery needs expansion to meet demand; that’s now been stymied and it means that the potential for new lairs in and around Coatbridge is extremely limited.
“I don’t think those who voted for it have thought out the implications or
repercussions, which are that we’re now back to square one and struggling to identify any suitable land.
“This isn’t thinking in the round about the emerging need to create burial facilities for local families.
“I don’t think anybody anticipated this and I was taken aback about it not going ahead as I thought we were making progress.
“We have had representations from families concerned about future lairs. We now need to try to identify alternative land as a lot of families want to bury their loved ones locally, which is entirely
reasonable and we need to meet that aspiration.”
He added of the current sports pitch: “If the transfer for the cemetery expansion had happened, then part of the Sportscotland regulations is that we’d have had to provide alternative and improved facilities elsewhere in the neighbourhood as we’ve done in numerous instances, such as in Airdrie where the tower blocks are being demolished.
“That ground hasn’t been played on for a long time and the changing rooms are badly vandalised. For any team to play there
would need considerable investment by the council in upgrading facilities, but there are no plans whatsoever to include [ the site] in any future programme.”
A report for councillors noted: “The recreational land at Morven Street offers the only opportunity for a cemetery expansion adjacent to the existing facility.
“The use of adjacent land [would] also have cost and efficiency benefits by expanding an existing site rather than the significant investment required in a new site.”