The Centre for Natural Burial

By Times & Star

OBJECTORS packed Lorton’s Yew Tree Hall on Tuesday as the planning inquiry into a controversial plan for a woodland burial site in the valley got underway.

Planning inspector Wenda Fabian conducted the inquiry into plans by Essex Firm Woodland Burial Services Ltd to create more than 3,000 burial plots on a site near Shatton Hall Farm.

The company bought 30 acres of agricultural land from the farm in 2004, but its first application was deferred and, when it went back for consideration last year, the site had been reduced to eight acres.

The plan was turned down by the Lake District National Park Authority’s development plan last April and the developers appealed against the decision.

There have been about 90 objections to the plan.

The company was represented by agent Edward Gittins, a chartered town planner, and the national park authority was represented by Paul Haggin, development control team leader.

Also present was Whitehaven-born John Acton, 60, a director of Woodland Burial Services Ltd, who said the company had been looking for sites in Cumbria for some time.

Ms Fabian said that the main grounds for objection were the effects of the development on the landscape; that it would mean more traffic and there was the potential for water-borne infections to be transmitted to livestock.

But, she said, the company believed the proposals would have a minimal visual impact and would reduce local journeys. It would create a full-time job, for a site manager.

Mr Gittins said the company had experience of integrating sites into sensitive environments, and that initially, a tree would be planted to mark each grave, but as they grew the land would be managed, with some trees being removed. Native species would be planted to fit in as a natural landscape feature.

When the graveyard was full, in 30 to 40 years, the site would become a managed woodland to fit in as a natural landscape feature and would ultimately become a nature reserve managed by a conservation trust.

Cumbria Wildlife Trust had expressed a willingness to take it on.

But Mr Haggin said the site was an open and very tranquil one with no woodland and he did not think the development would look like a natural feature.

The proposed site would have a nine metre wide access gateway and the highways authority had said that sight lines of 143 metres to the south west and 127 metres to the north east would have to be provided. This would involve moving a hedgerow back by 2.4 metres.

Mr Gittins said the car park would be landscaped behind hedges and road users would just get a glimpse of the site,while any short-term harm would be replaced by long-term benefits.

But Mr Haggin said that the national park authority felt the visibility splay would cause environmental harm. He said that the hedgerow was a characteristic feature of the valley and, if removed, would take five to seven years to re-establish itself.

Allerdale council leader Joe Milburn, who represents the Lorton valley, said the authority’s bereavement services department provided woodland burials, so there was no need for this site.

Allerdale provides green burial sites at cemeteries in Workington, Cockermouth and Maryport and the council said there was capacity for the next 40 years.

He said the council also opposed the project because it would lead to an increase in carbon footprint and emissions as a results of “the haulage of bodies from goodness knows where.”

Mr Gittins told him: “Our principle is to cater for people who want to be buried in natural surroundings - these cemeteries don’t have the natural beauty found in the countryside. We are catering for a totally different concept not found in traditional cemeteries.”

Retired GP Dr Brian Herd, one of the principal objectors to the scheme, said the scheme would result in “a neglected field with a car park and graves” while villager Ted Petty said it could lead to littering and to problems with people parking and camping overnight and another speaker said that the site would be used as a turning point for lorries.

Mr Gittins said that 80 per cent of the burials would be of people living within a 20 to 30 mile radius while the remainder would be of people who had associations with the area.

He added that bodies would be buried about 1.3 metres deep and usually in chipboard coffins, although some people opted just for a shroud. Ashes being deposited at the site were either poured in or buried in a wooden casket and a wooden plaque, with name and date of death, marked the site of each grave.

Ms Fabian said concern had been expressed by people wondering why human bodies could be buried at the site while animals could not.

Animals carried notifiable diseases which could spread, while humans normally did not carry such risks.

But Dr Herd said that if the body of a CJD sufferer was buried there, then the disease could get into the food chain and he had alerted the Government’s chief medical officer, Dr Liam Donaldson, to the risks.

Ms Fabian will make a decision on the site, which will be announced later.