Council identifies eight new cemetery sites to address shortages

Creating additional cemeteries should be an “absolute priority” for Sheffield, councillors say, with six out of the city’s 16 burial grounds lacking any space for new graves.

In a meeting earlier this month, council leaders said the city risked having no available burial places whatsoever within six to eight years and, to meet this challenge, eight potential sites for new cemeteries had been identified.

Councillor Kurtis Crossland, chair of Sheffield’s Communities, Parks and Leisure Policy Committee, said: “There is no wiggle room or excuses on this, it’s an absolute priority…  [It is] one of those few absolute mission critical things that we need to deal with as a city.”

The ongoing issue was amplified after a 7,000-signature petition, demanding more burial space be found in the city within two years, was handed to the council by Abid Hussain, a trustee of the South Yorkshire Muslim Bereavement Trust.

The petition warned that, without urgent action, Sheffield’s Muslim community would have no burial plots left within as little as three years.

To illustrate the point, Mr Hussain mentioned Haji Ghulam Mohammed, a World War II veteran and former steel worker, who died last November at the age of 109. “He had more medals than I’ve had hot dinners. Imagine if he passed away and there was no grave for him.”

Cllr Crossland added that the capacity problem had been clear for at least a decade, with a range of councillors and officers calling for action over that time.

Last year, the Law Commission suggested several possible solutions to UK-wide pressures on cemetery space. These included reopening UK graveyards declared full in the Victorian era and reusing all old graves.

The Commission added that some of the laws relating to burial in the UK date back to the 19^th century and were not created with 21st century realities in mind.