Concerns Dewsbury will run out of burial space in just over 12 months with 1,000 spaces available

Multiple members of the community attended the last full council meeting to voice their concerns over the “rapidly depleting” provisions.

Hassan Badat of Snowdon Mosque, Batley, raised the issue and said he is “alarmed” by the reportedly dwindling number of spaces. According to the Council, there are 1,000 burial spaces currently available in Dewsbury, which was said to be sufficient to serve the community of around 66,000 for the next six to seven years. However, campaigners disputed this claim, stating that the Council’s own data shows that the spaces will reach full capacity in 12 to 18 months’ time.

It was also revealed that of the 1,000 spaces, 500 are privately owned and allocated to the Muslim Burial Council for those belonging to the Islamic faith, in which burial is chosen over cremation. This leaves 500 council-owned spaces to cater for the remainder of the community over the course of the next six to seven years.

Zahid Kahut, a representative from Dewsbury Cemetery Multi-Faith Action Group also had concerns that another wave of COVID would increase the need for these burial sites, depleting the provisions at a faster rate than expected.

In response, Councillor Will Simpson (Labour, Denby Dale), said that “based on the current death rates and demographic figures that we have, this capacity will last us for several years yet.”

“Through the established bereavement forum … the council does work with stakeholders collaboratively and cooperatively to review our bereavement services estate.

“In recent years this has resulted in and included investment in Hey Lane Cemetery, new cremators at Dewsbury and Huddersfield, we’ve got the new Muslim cemetery at the old bottle factory site in Batley.”

However, this did not alleviate concerns about burial space at Dewsbury Cemetery, as Haleem Akbar, of the Dewsbury Cemetery Multi-Faith Action Group, raised the issue of the division of the 1,000 spaces between the public and those privately owned and allocated to the Muslim Burial Council.

Mr Akbar said, “just to clarify then, you are including the private Muslim burial space at the top which will not serve our brothers and sisters of the Christian faith, of the Jewish faith and any other faith who wish to bury. Is that correct?

Coun Simpson responded saying, “burial space is burial space.” Mr Akbar disagreed saying, “respectfully, it’s segregated.” The Coun then explained that when reaching the 1,000 figure, burial provision for all faiths was taken into account.