THE Church in Wales is supporting proposed changes to the law that may transfer the care and maintenance of closed graveyards to local authorities.
Bearing the price of their upkeep had been “a heavy and unfair” burden on churches for a few years, the director of property strategy for the Church in Wales, Alex Glanville, said. The radical changes outlined within the proposed recent law, which embraces the numerous facets of burial and cremation, would have a big impact.
“It is the one denomination in Wales that has an obligation to bury all parishioners, without discrimination: an analogous duty to the Church of England,” he said.
“However, we shouldn’t have the equivalent power to transfer maintenance of closed burial grounds to local authorities. We consider the proposed change within the law is fair. Our congregations receive no income from closed burial grounds; so the burden of maintenance weighs heavily on them.
“We are very grateful for discretionary grants made by some local councils, and urge others to contemplate doing the identical, but we do consider the responsibility for maintaining places of community burial that are full should have the opportunity to be passed to the local authority.”
Burial law has evolved over the centuries, and far of it stays unchanged because the 1850s. Aspects of it in its current state “offer too little protection” to individuals who bury or cremate their family and friends. “Research also shows that there’s a risk of burial space running out in the long run, which is a difficulty that law reform could help to handle,” the Law Commission points out in its burial and cremation consultation document.
It continues: “This area of law impacts us not only as individuals, but in addition as members of various communities and faiths. The respect which we show to the dead is of significance to the entire of society.”
By way of illustration, the price of maintaining the closed graveyard at Mynwent Tanysgafell, near Bethesda, in north Wales, has fallen on parishioners within the ministry area (MA) of Bro Ogwen. The graveyard surrounds a ruined chapel, and was in use between 1848 and 1913. Among those buried were quarry staff, few of whom lived beyond their forties.
During the last yr alone, the MA has needed to give you a sum of about £1000 to repair a wall, and to reply to a farmer’s concerns that his sheep were eating berries — toxic to the animals — that were falling from the yew trees on to his land. More tree work proved to be needed, at an additional cost of about £450, and more specialist work may have to be done in the long run.
“It’s also our responsibility to make sure health and safety, particularly with tree work,” a community chaplain, the Revd Sara Roberts, said on Tuesday. “The graveyard on this, a heritage area, is removed from being unvisited. Descendants of some those buried here still live locally, and folks trying to find their ancestors come here from as far-off as America and Australia.
“There continues to be emotional attachment to this graveyard. The Archaeological Trust had a piece day, and invited people to return and do some clearing of brambles and undergrowth, and recording of stones. It got numerous interest,” she says.
Churches have found ways to get physical help to take care of graveyards, including using staff from the Community Payback scheme, and a few local communities have decided to to get together and do it repeatedly. “But that is dependent upon anyone having the time and the energy to get people up and running,” Ms Roberts says. “And the challenges vary from location to location, with some burial grounds level, and others on the hills.
“The issue isn’t just that we’ve got shrinking congregations, and so the burden is falling on fewer and fewer people. It’s also the case that individuals move away, and may not take care of the graves of their relatives. When people know there’s an issue, help can come flooding in. But people are likely to assume the church has got numerous money, not realising that the local church hasn’t got anything.”
The proposals are at consultation stage, with a deadline for responses of 9 January. Following the consultation, the Government will consider the recommendations, and when to bring forward laws. Much of the law on this area is devolved to the Welsh government.
