Programme Analysis - Burial Space Crisis Problem: Cemeteries
The Burial Act 1857
Solution: Crematorium
140,000 people in the UK still choose to be buried, cemeteries around the country are running out of space. In 2013, a BBC study found that a quarter of England’s local authorities — which oversee the overwhelming majority of cemeteries — expected those they managed to be full by 2023.
The Act made it illegal to disturb a grave (other than for an officially sanctioned exhumation).
The public’s refusal for change had allowed escalating problems to go unaddressed; it meant that possible solutions had been overlooked, or dismissed as too controversial.
“The crisis is built into our system. We’ve always been at crisis levels”.
In 2004, the Government considered the problem that when a burial ground became full, it generated no income from new burials, and without income, it may become difficult to maintain and fall into neglect.
Getting to grips with the lack of burial space requires weighing the rights of the dead, as well as of the living that they leave behind, and asking how far society should go to accommodate the minority of people who still want to be buried.
Consequently in 2015, amendments to the Burial Act 1857 permitted the disturbance of graves with Church of England’s permission. This law is largely responsible for the burial crisis we face today.
Statistics for cremation, as of 2018: • The cremation rate in the UK is 77.05% • The busiest crematorium in 2017 was Amersham with 3,764
Cramming As cemeteries eventually run out of space, graves will continue to grow. This results in a need for increased site boundaries, resulting in a take over of adjacent land. In some instances, to clear space for more graves, workers remove benches and dig up trees, this resolve is unsustainable as it serves as a means to an end.
• The most expensive crematorium in 2017 was Beckenham
Cost As burial space becomes more scarce, burials themselves are becoming more expensive. Scarcity of plots has significantly inflated fees, the average cost of a basic burial in the UK increased 70 per cent between 2008 and 2018, to almost £4,800.
• The Average cost of a basic cremation in the UK is £3312.43
“There’ll be a situation where burial will start to become a kind of luxury product...you can buy it if you can afford it”.
• Each Crematorium had an average of 1607 cremations in 2017
Conclusion The most suitable intervention for the burial crisis, is to progress with cremation. This intervention can significantly reduce occupied space, and proves to be more affordable than a typical burial.
• The cheapest crematorium in 2017 was Belfast • The average crematorium fee in the UK is £783.18 (up 766% since 1990)
This method can also deal with existing graves that need to be relocated. The method of cremation requires further analysis, as it too harbours unsustainable qualities.
• There were 467,748 cremations in the UK in 2017 across 289 crematoriums.
Case in Point: Timeline of Bicester Cemetery Located in Bicester, England, this cemetery is an exemplification of the burial crisis, and the futility of current intervention strategies. “It’s a pleasant, simple space: a long path runs through it, flanked by lines of trees. The oldest of the weathered gravestones I saw dated back to 1865”.
Bicester Cemetery space becomes so scarce that the local council bans residents from reserving plots, “If we had carried on the way we were there would not have been any space left in the cemetery”.
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Bicester Cemetery expands in 2010 when its site boundary is increased further into Pingle Field Recreational Ground. This intervention did not solve the issue, rather it bought some time.
2006
2010
Cemetery closed to help prevent the spread of Covid-19, it eventually reopened. However, currently there are 28 single burial plots and 31 plots for cremated remains left at the cemetery in a town of over 30,000.
Local council declare the site has 2 years of grave space remaining before alternative measures will need to be considered. 16 trees were removed on site to allow for more space.
A proposed solution to the burial crisis involved occupying further land for a new burial site. This was included in the Cherwell Local Plan, with 10 acres of land being reserved at the 6,000-home eco town in North West Bicester.
2015
2019
2020
2021
