While it’s not a thought many want to entertain, cemetery experts are warning that a burial-space shortage is a looming crisis. Meanwhile, cemetery managers are calling for a change to British law, so that graves that are over 75 years old could be reused.
The law has been in effect in London since 2007 but hasn’t yet reached the rest of Britain. The policy allows those buried 75 or more years ago to be buried deeper in the plot, with the higher spot allowing for a new body.
The “crisis” can be explained partially by the still-high demand for burials. The BBC said that 74 percent of the British who died in 2012 were cremated, but those levels show little sign of increasing. To add to that statistic, there is still apparently a high demand for full burials and burials of ashes.
According to the survey, about 44 percent of the 358 local authorities participating said that they would be out of space within two decades.
An example of the crisis in action is in Bicester, Oxfordshire, whose population is set to double over the next ten years as the town builds 12,000 new homes. The area is so short on burial space that its citizens have resorted to burying bodies in car parks and under pathways.
“We’re getting to two years of burials remaining so we are desperate to find other means – other land for a new cemetery ground,” said Chris Johnson, Bicester’s cemetery manager.
While an obvious idea might be to simply find more unoccupied land, the process of setting up new graveyards is expensive and time-consuming, involving negotiations with land owners.
As well, the idea of reusing graves is laborious as well, as cemetery managers must find and contact the family of the deceased to get permission to reuse the grave.
Huffington Post reports that the cost of dying in Britain now averages around £7,622 (about $12,297 USD), a roughly 7 percent increase from the previous year. Cremation alone costs £2,998 ($4,837 USD).
