Camberwell Cemetery, pre-destruction
Claiming that it could run out of burial space by 2017, Southwark council have planned the largest ever excavation of UK graves in Camberwell New Cemetery. While financially sensible, members of the ‘Save Southwark Woods’ campaign have reacted with fury, saying: “it steals respect from the dead and trees from the living”.
In over a year of on-going conflict, the group have attempted to declare the cemetery a local nature reserve; as the cemeteries of Nunhead, Highgate and Tower Hamlets already are. Blanche Cameron, spokesperson for the campaign, said: “people will never be willing to give up the graves of their ancestors so Southwark Council can make a profit”.
Pls sign/RT petition to save the Camberwell Cemeteries
100 acres woods graves memorials greenspace nature + beautyhttps://t.co/eIHMSEZGsh pic.twitter.com/7UsPJdd1zZ— Save Camberwell Cems (@SouthwarkWoods) November 13, 2016
With the time for a full decision closing in, campaigners have increased their efforts against the council, tying their cause into the Remembrance Sunday events. SSW cited the seven WWI veterans losing their graves to the scheme, publicising Southwark’s decision to “continue its programme of forgetting its heroic dead.”
While law allows for excavation of graves older than 75 years, public pressure has for so far stopped Southwark council from going ahead with the plans, the following weeks determining who will win the 18 month battle.
