Fife Council: Consultation finished on future of cemeteries

Nearly a dozen in the Kingdom are currently at capacity, with more due to reach critical mass within the next 10 to 20 years.

As of October 2022, this includes Beath Cemetery, which has a 10-year capacity, and Ballingry Cemetery, which will be full after four years.

There are no new graves available at Bowhill Cemetery, though reopens are still being offered, and Mossgreen Cemetery is open to maintenance only.

It is not possible to extend the Beath and Ballingry yards and the local authority will need to find suitable ground elsewhere for new sites.

Lochgelly Cemetery has an expected 157-year capacity.

Last month community feedback was taken to find a resolution to the issue.

Liz Murphy, Fife Council’s bereavement services manager, said: "With the time it takes to find and develop new sites, we need to start looking now.

"It’s really important we hear the community’s views because it affects everyone in Fife.

"We’re using this consultation to get feedback from the community to help us develop a strategy moving forward.

"Ultimately, people need to consider what they want from a cemetery."

Fife has 61 ‘active’ cemeteries with regular burials, however, ten have no additional capacity, meaning that only 51 sites have lairs available to purchase.

An additional 11 are due to reach capacity within the next 10 years and seven cemeteries have less than five years.

There is an average of around 900 burials in Fife every year, with around a third of these requiring new lairs to be allocated.

Solutions may range from halting the pre-sale of lairs across Fife, creating more burial options for cremated remains, or building spaces where urns can be stored safely and respectfully.

Future cemetery provision could also take the shape of either one large cemetery for the entire region, or one site for multiple communities.

The results from the consult will inform the cemetery strategy which will be published later in the year.