Families fear they will have to take 'disturbing' walk over graves to visit loved ones as council remove footpath at Warblington Cemetery
Havant Borough Council removed the footpath to create space for 85 new graves
Families fear they may not be able to visit their loved ones’ graves after a footpath was dug up a footpath that leads through Warblington Cemetery.
The works were carried out by Havant Borough Council to create more burial space, but the move has upset some of those who already have family members buried there.
Graham Fox, whose daughter is buried in the cemetery said: “I don't like walking over graves, but I am able to manoeuvre around all of them. But I'm turning 73 next week, and there will come a time when I can't go visit my daughter because I won't get to get down there.
“I've been down there every couple of weeks, and I went back with my wife just to visit my daughter's grave, and there was no path. The path was just gone. Of course, when we then came back out to the car park, there's a pile of rubble in the car park.”
The News understands that the council did not give any warning to the visitors of the cemetery or the wider community before it dug up the paved footpath.
“I've been going down there for 30 years, so I see all the notices,” said Graham.
“They tell you about the Christmas decorations, if they're not removed by the 6th of January, they will remove them and throw them away and things like that. So they're always putting notices up, but they didn't put anything up about this.
“I met a lady last week when I was down there. Her father and brother were buried about half a dozen away from my daughter. She doesn't drive, and her mother is in a wheelchair, so she won't be able to get her mother down to visit.
“At the moment it’s not so bad because it's been so dry this summer, but you wait till the winter sets in, it's horrible down there with the mud. I mean, we always take boots come Christmas Day when we visit because it's also wet and soggy, so you're never going to get a wheelchair around any of it like that.”
Graham has put in a complaint with the council about the removal of the path, which told him it had been taken away “as part of works to create additional burial capacity” in the cemetery, with the aim to add space for 85 new graves.
“I mean, this is 60 to 65 metres of footfall. If you look, one side, there is 25 rows and 15 in a row, roughly. So this affects probably 400 or 500 graves, and all those relatives that go with them,” he said.
“Years ago, when my daughter was first buried, I thought ‘I'll get a double grade for my wife and myself to be near her’. Because I was only 40-ish at the time, they said, ‘you can't buy a gravesite for 30, 40 years hence’.
“Of course, now they're all full. So we've resigned ourselves, so we will be cremated eventually and scattered over her gravesite. That's about all we can do.”
A spokesperson for Havant Borough Council said: “As in many areas, there is a shortage of burial plots within Havant Borough and despite recent efforts to create more grave space at Warblington Cemetery, it had almost reached capacity and was close to being unable to accommodate any more burials.
“We know that being able to bury their loved one close to home is really important to residents, allowing them to grieve in their own time and pay their respects without having to travel long distances so we examined the site to see if there was any way to create more burial plots. We identified three sections of footpath which could be repurposed for burials, creating a further 85 burial plots.”