Warning over full graveyards as people can’t be buried without pre-booked spot

A town’s boss has warned that people are unable to bury loved ones unless they have booked a space in the cemetery in advance.

Friends of a 46-year-old man called Neil who died recently in Bicester, Oxfordshire said they found out yesterday that there were no burial sites unless they had been pre-booked.

And Bicester isn’t the only place this is happening – communities across the country are running out of space in cemeteries, with loved ones facing the prospect of people being buried far away from where they lived.

Lib Dem councillor John Willett has now spoken out to say the town’s cemetery cannot be expanded.

‘Due to the high water table, further expansion of the current site is impossible,’ he said.

Friends of Neil, who had lived in Bicester his whole life, found out the closest spot he could be buried was in a village called Tackley, 11 miles away.

But Neil’s two children don’t drive and so his loved ones are now fighting for him to be buried locally.

One of his friends said: ‘We just assumed when he passed away he would be buried in Bicester.

‘Losing somebody is hard to deal with, and it is sad not having somewhere people can go to sit and chat with him.

‘We would love to be able to do that.’

With this space issue impacting graveyards across Britain, there are now many ‘over-burying plots’ as well.

This practice involves digging shallower graves that aren’t as deep as the original so that you can bury people on top of other graves.

With this national shortage of grave space in recent years, one cemetery in East London came up with a pioneering solution.

In an article written for Metro in July 2019, Gary Burks, superintendent for the City of London Cemetery and Crematorium described the solution that they had implemented.

The City of London Cemetery and Crematorium in Newham, a beautiful 163-year-old, 200-acre Grade I listed site managed by the City of London Corporation, offers a picturesque haven for thousands of mourners.

It is one of the largest municipal cemeteries in Europe and was reaching full capacity.

But instead of ceasing burial services, opening new cemeteries or asking the local community to go to neighbouring boroughs, it brought in ‘grave recycling’.

It is exactly what it sounds like – when a grave has been unused for over 75 years and a family consents or can’t be contacted, they place a new body into it.

Get in touch with our news team by emailing us at webnews@metro.co.uk.

For more stories like this, check our news page.