Plans to convert farmland into a new cemetery for the Muslim community have been submitted to a city council.
The Green Meadows Cemetery project, which will have about 8,500 burial spaces, will include a community-use building in Sutton, just outside Peterborough.

Tokeer Tufail, from the Green Meadows charity, said there was a “desperate need” for more burial space as the current facilities offered by Peterborough City Council were “nearly exhausted”.
He said a lot of work and community consultations had been carried out to understand the requirements of the community.

According to the planning statement, work on the cemetery will be completed over three phases, with the first including 1,620 potential burial spaces and plans for a single storey building to be used as a prayer hall for ablution, cold storage and a family waiting area. It also includes an attenuation pond with wildflowers, pathways and a refuse and soil storage area.
The plans said land for phase two and three would be prepared as flowering lawn until required for burials.

Mr Tufail said the hope is to maintain the biodiversity of the area and offer people of faith and no faith a “calm and reflective space” with benches and walkways.

Currently, the multi-faith Eastfield Road cemetery run by the council is the only provision for the Muslim community in Peterborough.
Religiously, Muslims are expected to begin funeral arrangement soon after death and burial should take place as soon as possible.

Mr Tufail said the cemetery currently doesn’t offer any pre-booked or lease-free spaces, which is preferred by Muslims.
This proves “challenging” and could lead to a small delay in burials, he said.

‘Noble cause’

So far, the application has received a positive response with many “welcoming” the idea.
A resident from Netherton, who supported the plan, said it was “much-needed”, while another from West Town “applauded” the efforts of the organisation.
Another said the current cemetery had served the community well but it was “no longer sufficient to meet the demands of the growing population”.
“A new cemetery will address some of the challenges and offer a more appropriate space for the community to honour and remember those they have lost,” they said.

There have been some objections from people in surrounding villages; One said the plans could lead to “excessive traffic” between the villages, and another said the land was “vital for farming”.
They said more “more sustainable alternatives, such as cremation or natural burial, which minimise environmental impact and make better use of limited resources” should be considered.
One resident has called for the cemetery to be a multi-faith one as they believe the city is falling short of burial spaces for all faiths.

The application is yet to be discussed by Peterborough City Council’s planning team.

Source: BBC