Thousands of graves to give way to commuter traffic

NEARLY 20,000 bodies will be exhumed so a road can be widened, despite pleas from relatives not to disturb the dead.

The Church of England has set aside its usual presumption against exhumations after a Church court found there was overwhelming public benefit to widening a pinch-point in a congested road on the outskirts of Hull.

Residents whose ancestors’ bodies will be moved opposed the application.

In a letter to the Consistory Court, a Miss G. Johnston wrote she was “strongly opposed” to disturbing the bodies of the dead, including those of her “four-times great-grandparents”.

She wrote: “None of us would agree to be buried anywhere if we thought that within 170 years, our bodies would be exhumed and reburied elsewhere, perhaps in a mass grave, to widen a road.”

Hull’s departed inhabitants will be moved from their resting place in the Trinity Burial Ground, in Hull Old Town Conservation Area, which was the city’s main burial ground from 1783 to 1861. More than 44,000 bodies lie in the cemetery.

Now with the approval of church leaders, as many as 19,000 will be exhumed to widen the A63 as it runs next to the churchyard, between the city centre and the north bank of the Humber river.

Canon Peter Collier QC, chancellor of the Diocese of York, has given his backing to the scheme over the objections, and also given permission for 1,500 of the skeletons to be examined and samples taken for analysis.

He said there was sufficient public need for the road widening to set aside the Church’s usual presumption against exhumations.

He added: “The analysis and examination of some of those remains is also, in my judgment, a public benefit that I should permit.”

He was supported by the vicar of Hull Minster and the Parochial Church Council who spoke of the “desperate need for a major upgrade to this extremely busy and congested road”.

‘The analysis and examination of some of those remains is also, in my judgment, a public benefit’