Teddington neighbours make final plea to save area’s last allotments from graveyard conversion

Campaigners are urging the council to pause its planned closure of Shacklegate Lane allotments on October 1

Campaigners have issued a final plea to halt plans to convert their neighbourhood’s last allotments into a graveyard. Neighbours are calling on Richmond Council to pause its planned closure of the Shacklegate Lane allotments on October 1 to allow time for the rollout of alternative solutions to a shortage of burial space in the borough.

Residents have been fighting the council’s decision to extend Teddington Cemetery onto the allotments since it agreed the plans last December to meet demand for burial spaces. While the extension is set to provide more than 700 new burial spaces for roughly the next 30 years, locals said the council still needed better long-term plans for burials which it could have introduced before getting to this point.

The authority rejected their petition earlier this year, which was signed by 1,758 residents and warned destroying the much-loved 120-year-old allotments to extend the cemetery was “just a short-term solution to the longer-term problem of burial space” shortages in Richmond.

Campaigners are urging the council to pause the closure of the allotments and reassess whether any of the site needs to be reclaimed once it has put in place a long-term sustainable burial strategy, involving reusing plots, like other local authorities have managed – including the City of London Corporation.

They have proposed the council take only half of the site while rolling out a grave reclamation scheme, which it agreed to introduce in 2018 when more burial space was needed in Richmond. Reclaimed graves must be at least 75 years old and have extra burial space.

Allotment holder Paul Cuff, 79, told the Local Democracy Reporting Service (LDRS) this strategy could have provided enough plots without needing to take the allotments if it had already been put in place.

Paul said: “They’ve got themselves into a situation of having no burial space at all in this cemetery because they’ve known about it, they’ve just buried their heads in the sand and not done anything about it.

“Now it’s reached crisis point where they haven’t got any space left at all, but they could take a certain portion of the allotments and it would give them time to see how much space they could have available.”

While the council first granted permission for the cemetery to be extended onto the allotments in 1993, it only ended up taking some of the site and it was not until December last year that it formally approved plans to take the remaining allotments.

Residents have repeatedly raised concerns to the council over the decision, which they described as a short-term fix that would permanently destroy a long-term community resource and impact wildlife at a significant cost to the taxpayer.

Richmond’s Local Plan up to 2039 says the council “will protect existing allotments”.

Concerns ‘ignored’

Residents told the LDRS they felt their concerns had been ignored by the authority, and they are now calling for it to rethink its decision to save money.

Paul said: “The other aspects that we raised about the need for allotments, about the reuse of burial ground in itself and the biodiversity issues have just been totally ignored.”

Campaigners are asking the council to take only half of the allotments to save money they would otherwise spend on extending the cemetery over the whole site, while putting a long-term burial strategy in place.

Paul said: “Once these allotments are gone, they are gone forever. This isn’t an argument against providing burial space. It is about whether Richmond Council is making the most responsible decision for residents.”

Although the council has offered all allotment holders another plot in the borough, residents said for some the swap did not work due to accessibility problems or the travelling involved. They said the allotments had brought the community together for decades and are vital for their physical and mental health.

Council officers told the Environment Committee in March the authority was investigating reusing existing burial plots to maximise space, but this would only be possible in the long term.

‘The world has changed’

Resident Jane Cowling told the committee at the time: “This isn’t just a piece of land. It’s a living, breathing part of our community. Since the council first made the decision in the 1990s, the world has changed. People care more than ever about sustainability, about access to green spaces, about mental and physical wellbeing and about locally-grown food.”

Candace Taylor, another resident, added: “Partial conversion would show residents – your voters – that the council listens to public opinion and is innovative, flexible in finding solutions and adapts to changing views and issues.”

A Richmond Council spokesperson told the LDRS: “We know people feel strongly about Shacklegate Lane allotments and understand the upset. Allotments are valued community spaces, and this has not been an easy decision.

“The land at Shacklegate Lane was originally designated for cemetery use in the 19th century. The planned works will provide more than 700 new burial spaces, securing burial provision in Teddington for around the next 30 years.

“Our teams have been working with tenants to help them find suitable alternative plots at other sites wherever possible, in line with National Allotment Society guidance.

“It is worth noting that Richmond upon Thames continues to provide significantly more allotment space than the London average, with 12.3 plots per 1,000 residents compared with an average of 5 per 1,000.

“We want the cemetery to remain a green, welcoming and accessible place for residents. As part of the works, we will reintroduce community growing space in the reclaimed area through removable wooden planter boxes, alongside plans to improve biodiversity, create volunteering opportunities and develop accessible community gardening projects.”

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