We hear from the News Review Messenger that;

SALISBURY Council is backing away from a plan to reuse graves at Salisbury Memorial Park.

The council released a plan in June to dig up graves with expired leases from 2017 and reuse them from 2019, in a bid to extend the life of the Spains Rd cemetery.

However, the council’s Budget and Finance Committee last week voted to explore possible new cemetery sites so it could avoid reusing graves.

The council was expected to rubber stamp the committee’s decision at its meeting on Monday night (September 26), after presstime.

If it goes through, council staff will begin discussions with the Land Management Corporation over the transfer of land around Sturton Chapel at Edinburgh Parks for use as a cemetery. Staff will also look at other possible cemetery sites.

Cr Joe Caruso (pictured), who put up the motion last week said the proposal to reuse graves, where the council would maintain burial sites for six months after the expiry date before excavating them 3m, was sacrilege. “They’re treating the whole thing as if it was a business, forgetting that these are actually people’s lives,” he said.

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