Plans to find more burial land in Reading have been unveiled, with just eight years of space left in the town for burying loved ones.

Reading Borough Council (RBC) expects to run out of burial space in 2029.

The council had expected to have capacity for a further three years than that when it voted to convert recreation space into 1,376 burial spots in 2015 but it has run out of space faster than predicted.

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RBC is now set to now explore four options to find more burial land in Reading, with the council's Policy committee to vote on approving this strategy next Thursday (September 23).

Having considered eight different options to find new land supply, officers have proposed that the council settles on the following four to look into:

  • Explore potential land options in the borough
  • Open discussions with the Caversham Park developer about buying their land
  • Open discussions with neighbouring local authorities about acquiring more land in partnership
  • Identify land within up to a 10-mile radius of Reading to provide 40-plus years of burial space

Other proposals, including doing nothing, re-using burial grave land by deepening graves older than 75 years, asking other local authorities if RBC can share its burial land and extending land at Henley Road Cemetery by using allotment land, have been rejected.

However, the council said the Henley Road Cemetery allotment space, which was originally purchased to be used for burials, “is an important land holding and consideration of using this land for burial provision in the future should be revisited if and when appropriate”.

As well as finding more space, the council is changing some policies, including banning side-by-side burials, which will help to increase the lifespan on the current capacity.

Why is the council running out cemetery space quicker than expected?

Henley Road Cemetery is the only land the council currently has that is suitable for burials, with two sections having space for new burial plots: Westfield and Mayfield.

The council says there is a reluctance by families to utilise double depth graves, which allow for a second burial, and this is reducing the lifespan of Westfield, where all graves are dug at double depth.

Additionally, burial activity over the last three years and during the pandemic has been significantly higher than the council had predicted when making estimations in in 2015.

In 2018 there were 203 burials, in 2019 there were 207 burials and in 2020, there were 287 burials.

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Although these burials were split between Mayfield and Westfield, the increase particularly impacted on Westfield due to the high number of Muslim burials.

The newly-revised projections for the lifespan of the two sites is five years for Westfield and three years for Mayfield if the new policies are introduced, a total of eight years capacity.

There is space for around 670 burial plots for cremated remains, with scope to increase this number considerably.

It is estimated that there are 14 years’ worth of capacity for this type of burial currently.