Plans to pass maintenance of burial grounds from Church of Wales to local authorities at ‘significant risk’

Alec Doyle – Local democracy reporter

Plans to allow the Church in Wales to pass the maintenance of closed burial grounds over to local authorities are a “significant risk” according to a Welsh council.

Flintshire County Council’s Bereavement Services manager Richard Blake raised the issue as the Environment and Economic Overview Committee considered a public consultation document issued by the Law Commission across England and Wales.

The commission is carrying out a comprehensive review of cremation and burial legislation including a public conultation that ends on January 9.

Members of the public can look over the entire proposal and have their say at lawcom.gov.uk/project/burial-and-cremation.

Financial risk 

Among the proposals is the ability of the Church in Wales to simply close any of its 1,054 burial sites in Wales and pass the responsibility – and cost – for maintaining it to the relevant local authority with no consultation.

The proposal would mirror the existing situation in England with the Church of England.

According to Mr Blake, aligning the Welsh policy with that of England would present a major financial risk.

“The Church in Wales would basically be able to close their burial grounds and pass them over to ourselves and community councils,” he said. “If that propossal was passed it’s going to have a significant risk for the authority as a lot of churches will want to pass over their burial grounds to us. Grounds maintenance, memorial safety and infrastructure – walls, paths etc – would all pass to us.

“Obviously there’s a significant financial risk to the authority, we’d have to cover that cost and would need additional budget to come with that.”

The Church in Wales has welcomed the proposals. In a statement Alex Glanville, Director of Property Strategy for the Church in Wales said: “The cost of maintaining closed graveyards, which are community burial places, has been a heavy and unfair burden for churches for many years.

“This proposes a radical change that would impact significantly on the Church in Wales.

Power

“It is the only denomination in Wales that has an obligation to bury all parishioners, without discrimination – a similar duty to the Church of England. However, we do not have the equivalent power to transfer maintenance of closed burial grounds to local authorities.

“We believe the proposed change in the law is fair. Our congregations receive no income from closed burial grounds so the burden of maintenance weighs heavily on them.

“We do believe the responsibility for maintaining places of community burial, which are full, should be able to be passed to the local authority.”

Penyffordd councillor Alasdair Ibbotson supported the idea.

“I’m passionately supportive of imposing a duty on local authoritries to take those over,” he said. “But where the Church in Wales exercised that right I feel the title for the land should also be assigned to the local authority as part of the responsibilities for maintenance.

“Church graveyards are an important historical record, they are also important to local communities and closed church graveyards will contain a number of graves of people who are within living memory.

“If this duty isn’t imposed we will not do it. What will inevitably happen then is where churches may be closed due to falling congregations, they will fall to rack and ruin and may be divested of by the church and sold for redevelopment.

“If we risk the total loss of these burial grounds – which in some Flintshire villages are the only green spaces that are not a play area –  I feel it is the right thing to do to transfer that burden to the local authority.”

Funding

Buckley Pentrobin representative Cllr Mike Peers insisted however that should these proposals come into force, they must come with funding from Welsh Government.

“I’m worried about the financial impact to the local authority,” he said, “I think it should go back to Welsh Government. They need to provide the necessary funding for this.”

The committee agreed to respond to the Law Commission highlighting concerns over the financial risk. Members of the public have until January 9 2025 to submit their personal responses.