Search for new Royston cemetery site begins after Wicker Hall plans shelved

The project to create a cemetery at Wicker Hall should end – that’s the view of Royston Town Council’s Cemetery Working Party, which made recommendations to full council on Monday.

Members of the council are now looking elsewhere for a site, as, after ‘improved understanding’, the Environment Agency (EA) deemed that Wicker Hall lies in a groundwater source protection zone – which means you can’t build a cemetery there.

The cemetery designs had already been completed, and the council was hoping that site clearance would start in autumn.

The EA offered to consider an evidence-based risk assessment to demonstrate that the cemetery would not contaminate water supplies together with an ongoing monitoring of water quality, but the working party decided that to undertake such a risk assessment would be complex, costly, iterative and protracted – with no guarantee that it would be approved.

If there are any members of the public who wish to join the working party to help with its search for a new site for the cemetery, contact the town clerk on 01763 245484.