Cemetery blues

The bid to build a 5,500 grave cemetery on the outskirts of Whittlesford is still to be decided. The district council's planning committee today agreed with their planning officers to oppose the application, by 10 votes to 1.

 I attended and spoke against the bid, as did the chair of the parish council.

The final decision will be made by the planning inspector, and if anyone has any views, they need to go to the planning inspector's website at www.planningportal.gov.uk/pcs or by emailing the PINS case officer at teamp1@pins.gsi.gov.uk If you do not have access to the internet, you can send three copies to

The Planning Inspectorate,  Room 3/09, Temple Quay House, 2 The Square, Bristol BS1 

The timing is tight - this needs to done by the 9th December. After that it is too late.

The main arguments put forward by the applicants are that there is a need for more burial space across the region based on a needs analysis. This is not about the Green Belt because the legislation allows for burial sites to be a use of the green belt. 

The main opposition arguments against the cemetery are that the narrow lanes are just not right for the amount of traffic that a steady flow of funerals and visiting relatives to graves would  bring in, i.e. along Hill Farm Road, Whippletree, Middlemoor and then along Newton Road, and then parking. In other words, the proposal is not a sustainable one.