Those who use a playing field say they’re set for a second fight after plans were announced to turn the majority of it into an extension to Spalding Cemetery.
Over ten years since a previous failed attempt, South Holland District Council wants to make the majority of Chiltern Drive Playing Field into 624 burial spaces plus cremation plots.
It says it only has 12 months’ worth, or 40 burial plots, left.
Its own Planning Committee blocked the last attempt in 2015, when the council said it only had four years’ worth of plots left, after Sport England objected to the loss of public recreational space.
In a bid to get around that this time, the authority says it will leave the portion of Chiltern Drive which has play equipment as it is and also ‘acquire’ 2.64 acres of land off Witham Road in the Wygate Park estate, around 30 minutes’ walk away.
Campaigners already believed the council planned to repurpose more than half of the playing field but neither they nor The Voice had questions regarding it answered.
A public press release was released just moments before the issue was due to be discussed at a meeting of the Spalding Town Forum on Tuesday (July 7.)
A lack of transparency from the council was among the criticisms made by forum members of what is set to be a formal planning application.
The concern came from Spalding Civic Society’s John Bland who called for it to be reconsidered and renewed a call made a year ago for a ’round table discussion’ on the proposal claiming neither what would be left of
Chiltern Drive nor the Wygate open space ‘would have enough room for a kick about’.
David Jones questioned the legality and asked what other land had been looked at and suggested starting a new cemetery near Surfleet Crematorium.
“We are very short of public playing space,” he told the forum. “If we’re expecting children to go over to Wygate Park across a major road and a railway line, it’s just not realistic for the people near what is currently a play area.
“It’s completely wrong to take it away from the young people to give to the dead.”
But both Coun Henry Bingham, the council’s portfolio holder for assets, and the South and East Lincolnshire Councils’ Andy Fisher made it clear the council was not prepared to buy any land and doesn’t own any it felt was suitable for burials.
Reburial (digging existing graves deeper) was also ruled out as being too costly to pursue, Mr Fisher said.
“We believe this is the most sensible route to achieve what we need for the district”, Coun Bingham said. “We don’t have to do it, but we will run out of cemetery space which will mean people in Spalding will have to be buried out of the area. We have no other lands.
“In an ideal world it would be better next to the crematorium, but we’re not in a position to purchase further land.
“This is an achievable project that will last 20 years and mean people can bury their grandparents, parents and children. This is the only way they can be buried in Spalding.
“With no further burials Spalding would become a closed cemetery and with experience those tend to go to wrack and ruin.”
Coun Bingham said the estimated cost of creating the extension was £135,000 and that the existing public right of way that leads through to Vernatt’s Nature Reserve would continue to be open 24/7.
He angered campaigners who attended the meeting by criticising the state of Chiltern Drive which the campaigners say has been neglected by the council, including them having removed the goal posts which were previously there.
“If it was more quality open space I could probably get behind it, but at the minute it’s a piece of grass.
“There’s a lot of dog walking, but it’s low use.”
Some forum members backed the plan with Coun James Le Sage saying: “This is the only option you’ve got and we have to deal in reality, not wishful thinking.”
Mr Fisher said the cost of legal fees for reburial would be ‘disproportionate to the chance of success’.
Speaking after the meeting the group of campaigners said Chiltern Drive was well used and they wanted more information on why other sites were turned down.
Clare Moore, a resident of Ladywood Road, said: “The council is going against government policy that they have to provide what’s lost.”Just because the park doesn’t have equipment in, it’s still classed as a kick around area.
“They took down the goal posts with the intentions of doing this.
“A lot of children and families use the park.
“The Chappell Centre use it for their young adults as they feel safe there.”
The council says the application would also include a pledge to spend £70,000 on improving brickwork on the Cemetery Chapels and the Johnson Mausoleum in the current cemetery.
