ILMINSTER NEWS: Positive talks on cemetery crisis

COUNCILLORS will discuss in private tonight (Tuesday, June 21, 2016) latest proposals to try and solve the problem at Ilminster Cemetery which is rapidly running out of space for people to be buried.

Ilminster Town Council meets this evening for its full monthly meeting, but a discussion on the future of the cemetery will be had at the end once members of the press and public have been asked to leave the proceedings due to its confidential nature.

Last month councillors were told that a constructive meeting had been held with officers at South Somerset District Council about the problems with the cemetery.

Ilminster Mayor, Cllr Val Keitch, recently met with the district council’s David Norris and Rob Archer – plus Ilminster Town Council clerk Joy Norris and the town council’s Cllr Rob Drayton.

Cllr Drayton, who is vice-chairman of the town council’s open spaces committee, said: “We looked at the possibilities of extending the cemetery on the same side or the road or going on land on the opposite side of the road.

“There are two or three sites around the town which will be looked at to see if they could be useful.

“It was a very positive step forward and it looks like ‘planning boxes’ are being ticked, but this will all take time.”

Town clerk Joy Norris said the district council wanted to “work with us” on the cemetery issue.

Councillors agreed last month that due to the serious lack of space at the cemetery that no more burial plots would be sold and any remaining land would be used for the interment of ashes only.

There is a very real possibility that people in Ilminster will not – at present – be able to be buried in their hometown on the event of their death because there will be nowhere to put them.

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