Create green burial sites next to roads to ease grave shortage, says public health expert

Bodies should be buried alongside roads and railways because British graveyards are almost full.

That is the view of public health expert Professor John Ashton. In an article published by the Royal Society of Medicine, he suggests creating green burial corridors next to major transport routes to increase grave capacity and help tackle climate change.

Around 500,000 people die each year in England and Wales, with around 70% of people cremated.

Prof Ashton, a former regional director of public health in the north west, said a more environmentally conscious population is increasingly opting to be laid to rest in biodegradable coffins with graves marked by trees, adding that
cremation has “peaked”.

He told PA: “The Victorians had to cope with large numbers of people needing their bodies dealing with and the churchyards became full, and they responded by passing an act of Parliament that required local authorities to set up municipal cemeteries everywhere, and they did that on a large scale.

“It’s round two of that now, because the municipal cemeteries are destined to be full in the next five or six years, and we need to find a solution to that.”

He said the increasing popularity of green funerals represented an opportunity.

“I think there should be a buffer zone around the main roads of trees,” he said.

“Some of those areas, currently agricultural land being put under pressure to build houses on, could be designated as green burial sites, particularly ones that are near to towns.”

Other options include brownfield sites in towns and cities which developers do not wish to build on, and areas around towns which are neither town nor country.

Prof Ashton said his idea could be part of the plan to make good on Theresa May’s commitment, announced last month, to reducing UK greenhouse gases to almost zero by 2050 – and offset unavoidable emissions from aviation and some other sources by planting trees or using technology to suck carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere.

He said: “There’s something about having a proper comprehensive network of green burial anyway and there is something about having green corridors for wildlife along transport routes, and so if we are going to have a massive programme of tree planting why don’t we include this as part of that?”

(c) Sky News 2019: Create green burial sites next to roads to ease grave shortage, says public health expert