@fran am sorry but I do not share your optimistic view. Southwark cannot actually reuse any grave space at this site until they get an amendment to the law to allow this (that will need Lords time) so any “reuse” plan is dependent on this. A bit cart before horse. It would also cease to be a local resource for people to be buried in if this happens, rather a lease scheme for best profit London-wide. Very much a test case for what happens to burial sites across London.
The Rec is very much in the frame still as it has not been saved forever. Bear in mind also that they are planning to clear woodland on One Tree Hill too. Once they have used all of the non-Rec land they will have nowhere else locally to go. The council have promised to preserve the Rec before and reneged on this anyway.
I am keen to ensure the rec stays the rec as i use it pretty much every day. But i am always surprised how quiet it is and indeed i met a grandma at the swings the other day who had lived in HOP for 25 years and didn’t even know it was there. I wonder whether there is local interest to try to convince southwark to do something more with the space or indeed create a friends of HOP rec to breathe a bit more life into it. Would love to see the area with the tunnel cleaned up and used more.
I find this incredibly frustrating. I feel like there are far too many cemeteries around here already. Sorry to play the millennial card, but this feels like one last jab from the baby boomers!
It is quite right to focus now on the person in the job, but for balance it is worth noting that the previous mayor, who commissioned reports that highlighted the environmental and economic benefits of trees for London, was equally nonchalant about these proposals. All mouth and no trousers - plus ça change.
The City Hall perspective seems to be that this is a local issue. A local issue all over London!
The land is designated Metropolitan Open Land which pretty much has the same protection as Green Belt. Some uses are allowed in MOL including cemeteries.
I am not aware of anyone attempting to promote the space as an Asset of Community Value which would make it immune from any form of development except for its existing lawful use.
29 September 2016 We are waiting for word from the Church of England giving Southwark Council permission to finish work on Part 2 of Cemetery Works - digging up Area Z in Camberwell Old Cemetery and Part 3, cutting down dozens of trees in Camberwell New Cemetery on One Tree Hill. It should be any day now and our guess is they will allow them to continue.
Last year, Friends of Camberwell Cemeteries applied to the Council to be an Asset of Community Value for the 10 plus acres of woods Southwark Council is cutting down in Camberwell Old Cemetery (off Woodvale and Underhill Roads). It was rejected by the Council. We were a bit naive then!
Right now dozens of trees on the side of One Tree Hill are earmarked for graves on the 1 to 5 slope. ( How many older people are going to be slipping in the muddy hillside when trying to see their loved ones?) All for only 140 graves in a borough of 300,000 residents. The trees are not in nature reserve but they are still on that hill and make up the wooded area. Please ask the Friends of One Tree Hill to speak out.
And the Old Nursery site (Part 4 of the works) has fewer trees and would make a suitable sports pitch. It is steps away from Honor Oak Park Train station - maybe Lewisham Council can buy it and keep it grave free? We are waiting on Southwark Council to hold a meeting regarding the site.
It didn’t solve the problem, it just moved it. “Re-use” means cutting down trees in the Old Cemetery, digging up or mounding over graves, removing the history and the heritage and the beauty of the old graves, and stopping the land from returning to nature. We want Southwark Council to preserve the playing fields, allotments, graves and woods forever.
Yes you are probably right (ETA, indeed you are as I see from your cross post). The report is dated August 2016 so it is prior to the latest consultation results. The woodland burial option seems the best option though not necessarily the best for the site in my view (the existing concrete could be re-purposed for a community use and the grassland extended). Would make a lot of sense for the rest of Camberwell Cemeteries!
If only it were as simple as that. The reason why they need more space for this is that the council have opted to provide all burial for residents within the borough (even though only a minority choose this), and, as the law stands, they cannot reuse any of the space in the Camberwell Cemeteries as they are specifically excluded from the legislation which would have allowed that. Yet, still they pursue a strategy which relies on future re-use, but now London-wide for private burial. Meanwhile, the upshot is we lose woodland and, in this specific case, green space that was earmarked for community use. Once it’s gone, it’s gone, and all for short term gain it seems.
We, Save Southwark Woods (Now Friends of Camberwell Cemeteries) proposed making the 10 plus acres of woods and old graves in Camberwell Old Cemetery an “Asset of Community Value”. As it is the Council who decides whether a place or thing is an AOCV, they rejected our application. It is the same with Tree Protection Orders - it is up the Council to make those orders, and they can change them at their whim, as they did in the Old Cemetery. I believe this to be correct.
