Issas plan Blackburn cemetery to meet ‘shortage of Muslim burial plots’
THE Asian millionaire Issa brothers have unveiled plans to build Europe’s biggest Muslim cemetery in their home town of Blackburn, reports said.
The 84-acre Issa Memorial Garden to the west of Blackburn, Lancashire, will cover a space the size of 40 football pitches, and have room for 35,000 burial plots.
According to reports, the new site dwarfs the current largest Muslim cemetery, the Garden of Peace, which opened in east London in 2002. It has 10,000 plots, all of which are now occupied.
The charitable arm of Zuber and Mohsin Issa’s business empire, the Issa Foundation, has put forward the plans in part due to an increase in deaths from Covid.
However, more than 2,800 people signed a petition objecting to the proposals, citing concerns over congestion and wildlife on greenland where the cemetery would be built.
Following this, the local Hyndburn Council requested more information on the development.
Earlier, MailOnline reported that the brothers, who bought the supermarket giant Asda last year, won planning consent for a £5 million mosque in Blackburn.
“The need for Muslim burial plots in the northwest of England has become critical, a situation made worse by Covid 19. The proposal is a matter of public interest for the Muslim community and is of strategic importance for the northwest area,” the Issa Foundation said in a statement.
The foundation has registered an application with Hyndburn Council for the creation of the cemetery, located off Blackburn
Road, near Oswaldtwistle. It will have a provision for 663 car parking spaces spanning the full length of the site’s northern boundary, running parallel with Blackburn Road.
The site is close to the Issa brothers’ £100m Frontier Park complex, which has a service station, several food outlets, and a ‘Hampton by Hilton’ hotel.
According to the planning application, the cemetery will be built on undeveloped agricultural land, lying within the greenbelt.
At the moment, the main cemeteries in the area are at Pleasington in Blackburn and Burnley Road in Accrington.
The foundation said this new development is aimed at Muslim communities across East Lancashire, serving them for the next 50 to 100 years.
On the site, a main administration single-storey building will house the funeral parlour (ghusal area where the body is washed), prayer halls, condolence rooms and ablutions area.
According to the proposal, transport arrangements will also be provided for bereaved families. This will include the pick-up of the janaza (deceased) from the home, hospital or mortuary, bringing them to the local mosque or ghusal facility, where the washing and shrouding of the body will be performed, and then the final transport to the cemetery.
All proceeds from the business will be used to provide ongoing funeral services in the Muslim community, and none of the directors or the volunteers will benefit financially from the service it offered, the foundation said.
In early November, more than 200 people met to rally against the plans for the new cemetery. The meeting was attended by a number of councillors.
“We are concerned about a number of things. The roads are already congested enough in the
morning and this is going to make that even worse. People use the land for dog-walking and there is also wildlife living on the green land which we want to protect,” one resident, who wished not to be named, was quoted as saying by