Two of the stories that had most impact while I was at the East London Advertiser have now, thanks to the journalistic gods who like our world to be balanced and in harmony, coalesced into one.
On October 4 2007, we ran this front page:
(The typo, if you’ve spotted it, wasn’t my fault!)…This story had an impact in many ways and it left wounds which have healed only relatively recently. The thrust of it was a plan (the council disputed that word: they said it hadn’t achieved the requisite level of research at that point to merit being called a ‘plan’) to reuse Tower Hamlets Cemetery Park as a multifaith burial ground. That would have entailed digging up some 350,000 bodies buried there between 1841 and 1966 when the cemetery was closed. After a huge backlash, both locally and nationally, the plan was kicked into the long grass. For the time being at least.
A year earlier, on October 5, 2006, we ran this story:
After we ran this story, the council (mainly then press head Lorraine Langham who is now operations director at Ofsted) condemned us and Lib Dem councillor Stephanie Eaton, who did much to expose this scandal, of scaremongering. The council had forgotten to consult the Health and Safety Executive over a housing development it had granted permission for on The Oval in Bethnal Green. That error was not exactly minor because the proposed development, on which construction had already started, was right next to Britain’s biggest gasometers by the Regent’s Canal. The omission caused a major row between the HSE and the council. The HSE opposed the plan but the council then offered a compromise: it suggested putting signs up at the back of the new flats saying, “No smoking and no barbecues”. Seriously. The courts also considered the omission serious and the permission was eventually overturned (Ms Langham never did apologise to us).
The last time I looked, the development was still half-built, going nowhere and in limbo.
Two weeks ago, East End Life carried a brief item on page 3. Headlined “cemetery discussion”, it said:
THE mayor has asked council officers to urgently explore options for a new multi-faith cemetery in Tower Hamlets.
At a meeting of the council’s cabinet on December 7, Mayor Lutfur Rahman made clear that residents wanted to see options for a local cemetery brought forward for discussion.
Speaking after the meeting, he said: “Local people want the option of having a burial plot within their borough.
“Current arrangement with neighbouring boroughs don’t meet that aspiration. I want all the options on the table so we can debate them in an open and transparent manner.”
Full details of the meeting on the council website.
Well, when you go to the council’s website for that cabinet meeting on December 7, there is not yet anything about the cemetery discussion.
I understand that the matter was first raised at the Overview and Scrutiny Committee meeting the night before when Cllr Sirajul Islam, who suffered the devastating loss of his 14-year-old daughter Aniqua in 2006, had questioned why the new open spaces strategy contained no details about a cemetery in the borough. The committee chair Ann Jackson then raised it with Lutfur at his cabinet meeting the next day.
There was then some discussion about what had been happening to various plans on this issue in the past couple of years. It was then noted that the council was looking at a “commercial site” as a possible solution.
I understand that the commercial site they’ve earmarked is – yes, you’ve guessed it – the half-built development by the Oval gasometers and possibly land around it.
This is an issue that has had traction in Tower Hamlets for many years now. Tower Hamlets is not unique among inner London boroughs in having no working cemetery: in fact, none do. In east London, families must trek to Manor Park, Hainault, Redbridge and various other sites to visit graves.
This is a delicate one….but I’m not sure it’s right that taxpayers’ money should be spent buying land in these austere times.
Trial by Jeory 
Two questions seem to be posed by this;
– What’s the need for a burial site in the borough, if there is adequate provision in Manor Park / Hainault / etc?
– What else could be done with the land the Bethnal Green flats are on, and who currently owns this land?
Oh, and the issue of whether something that was claimed to have been mentioned at a Council meeting really did happen, but even asking that assumes that Lutfur and the EEL have a grasp on truthfulness; an assumption that is deeply flawed.
By the way, and your maths is as good as your spelling; Oct 2005 to Oct 2007 is two years, not one.
Tim.
ha..corrected – was 2006, not 2005. Thanks.
PS I checked with the council…it was discussed. And last time I checked on the ownership of that site, it was a developer.There had been talk of seeking compensation from the council but I’m not sure what happened to that.
So I take it there’ll be a no smoking at the graveside rule?
First of all, can I say how very sorry I am for anybody who has lost a child. I can well imagine why a father or mother would want to have their child nearby. Just as others would want their parents to still be near them.
However Tower Hamlets has already got TWO multi-faith burial sites.
One is the same one as is used by families in ALL the other East London boroughs. Very sensibly, the boroughs co-operated in the nineteenth century to develop the East London Cemetery and Crematorium in Grange Road, Plaistow.
In addition, ANYONE can be buried or cremated at the The City of London Cemetery and Crematorium in Aldersbrook Road, Manor Park – irrespective of City connections or religious beliefs.
Personally I think both could make a much better effort to communicate what options are available and how they can satisfy the needs and concerns of muslim families. That’s certainly something the Council can influence – and one wonders why they haven’t to date.
In addition, families wishing to have their loved ones buried in a site dedicated to muslims also have the option of using the cemetery dedicated to muslim burials in Hainault.
Now I recognise that none of these are ideally situated for families living in the borough.
However if you look round they country you’ll see that virtually the whole population of the UK is in the same situation. There’s a Cemetery somewhere in the local area – but it’s often quite remote from centres of population and it isn’t always easy to get to. So the problems faced by ALL families in Tower Hamlets are exactly the same as those faced by families all over the UK. None of us are in a better or worse situation than people living elsewhere.
However there’s another issue – which doesn’t get discussed enough.
I would hope that when considering the development of options that the Council will have a think about how it’s going to address the lack of open space for existing LIVING residents.
In particular maybe the Council could address how it’s going to meet the need for more open space and determine how the need to spend money on services for people who are still living ranks as a priority relative to the need for land for burials in the borough.
At present Tower Hamlets is way below the level of open space required per person for the current population.
This is also a statistic which is going to get much worse in the next 20 years or so as the population expands very significantly.
At present we have a very intelligent approach to the use of Tower Hamlets Cemetery Park which, due to the efforts of volunteers, provides a much needed benefit in terms of open space for the borough. It’s highly valued – as it operates at present – and is respectful of both the needs of those buried there not that long ago and the needs of those living in the area right now.
I recognise this is a sensitive subject – but if we’re talking about spending money I would certainly endorse an approach that favours prioritising the needs of the living and those who need to use council services every single day!
I’m not disagreeing with anything you said, but you stated Tower Hamlets already has two burial sites…. but they don’t – the two you stated are in the borough of Newham which was a bit confusing???
Indeed a sensitive subject matter, but one that still needs debating. The dead were taxpayers as are there families. It would seem to me that a public consultation would be an appropriate means to determine whether there was strong support for such an idea or not.
Why would it be necessary to remove that number of bodies from Tower Hamlets Cemetary? There seems to be a fair amount of unuse ground there – was it access?
I can appreciate that removing existing marked & monumental graves would cause offence (and also detract from the visual impact of THC) but removing remains from unmarked graves (if that is what the seemingly unused land contains) and reburying them in consecrated ground does not seem (to me) to be disrespecful.
Perhaps THC could be used for a small number of burials for those who wish to be interred there and any revenue raised used for the upkeep & cleaning up of THC.
John R
My understanding is that THC was closed and consequently deconsecrated as a cemetery because it was full. I think the visible headstones tell only part of the story.