MEETING AT GILROES CEMETERY

The Council of Faiths is involved in a meeting at Gilroes Cemetery and Crematorium, Groby Road, this afternoon, This is the latest in a quarterly programme of meetings involving City Council officers, cemetery and crematorium staff and city and county undertakers, discussing issues related to Leicester City Council's Bereavement Services.

While this is the first of these meetings in which we've taken part, we should look forward to being a regular participant from now on. In opening the meeting, Richard Welburn, Head of Bereavement Services at Leicester City Council, says that, given the diversity of Leicester, it is wholly appropriate, indeed essential, that the Council of Faiths should take part in these meetings. Leicester City Council wants to provide service relevant, appropriate and acceptable to the families and communities of Leicester and Leicestershire.

Minou Cortazzi is also here, representing the Council of Faiths Board of Directors. She also has an interest in this matter from the perspective of the Bahá'í community - on of those religions for whom burial of the dead is mandatory.

Today we learn that total burial space in the city will be used up in 40 years time (although space allocated to different faith communities is being used up at different rates). As part of its Burial Land Strategy (part of a set of 21 recommendations included at end of two-year long review of Bereavement Services) Leicester City Council is considering a number of options, but it is a long way from committing to any of them, given the sensitivity of the issue. These options include:

• opening up new spaces (e.g. by infilling space between graves and paths; grassing over paths) thereby extend the life of the existing cemetery;
• establishing a new cemetery which may incorporate natural burials (if a new cemetery is opened up while existing ones remains operational, this will extend the life of the existing ones);
• reuse of existing graves (changing terms of use of leasing land to families).

Latest plans for the crematorium expansion project (due to run from September this year until December 2012) were displayed, explained and discussed today. We were told that the current ratio of cremation to burial is 70:30.

These developments, in which the burial and cremation needs of the city a hundred years from now have to be taken into consideration, will necessarily have an impact on fees and charges made to users now and in the future. Any such impact has to be seen as fair, equitable and reasonable. Leicester City Council wishes to be transparent in making and justifying any such decisions (which is part of the reason for involving organisations like ours in consultation).

The next meeting of this kind should take place in September this year, before work on the crematorium extension begins.

A surreal episode: in a brief moment behind the scenes, two members of staff are planning the music to be played in one of the upcoming funeral services. They're discussing the relative merits of two different edits of "Hey Joe" by Jimi Hendrix.

BEREAVEMENT SERVICES SUB GROUP MEETS

A nice walk in the spring sunshine this morning to Shree Sanatan Mandir, Weymouth Street (photo above). There's an unusual but pleasing feel to the air today: warmed by sunshine behind, striding into cold air ahead. Maybe I enjoy the stroll a little too much; it should take just under an hour to walk to the temple, but I've only made it halfway down Melbourne Road by the time I realise I'd better get a cab if I'm going to arrive at a decent time! Once I state my destination, the driver (an Indian chap) asks if I'm "Hare Krishna, Hare Rama"; he's probably wondering what business someone like me has at the largest Hindu temple in Leicester.


I'm on my way to a meeting of the sub group appointed by the Council of Faiths to tackle issues related to the City Council's bereavement services. I join Minou Cortazzi, Suleman Nagdi and Smita Shah here today for the discussion. There are some sensitive issues around this (as you can imagine faithful reader) and some aggrieved voices have been raised among the faith communities in recent months over changes in the service - for both burial and cremation. We agree on what we hope will be a way forward on a number of these issues - leading into a wider ranging exchange of ideas regarding the present status and future role of Leicester Council of Faiths. Some good, strong and positive ideas, which I hope find meaningful expression in this, our silver jubilee year.

FOCUS GROUP ON BEREAVEMENT SERVICES

Saffron Hill Cemetery

At the Cathedral Centre, St Martins, this evening, for a different sort of meeting of Leicester Council of Faiths - well, certainly different from any I've attended during my time working for them. A focus group session involving members of the full Council of Faiths and invited guests (mainly representatives of the Muslim Burial Council for Leicestershire). We meet at the Cathedral Centre, for a presentation and discussion on Leicester City Council's Bereavement Services. Bereavement Services is undergoing its first formal review since 2003.

The presentation is led by Richard Welburn, Head of Parks and Green Spaces, Leicester City Council (with four City Councillors in attendance). Bereavement Services is part of the City Council's Parks and Green Spaces Service. It provides for burial, cremation, grounds maintenance of cemeteries and administration. It employs 25 staff and runs four cemeteries and one crematorium.

We're introduced to the historical background, facts and figures and legislative requirements currently affecting provision of bereavement services and the operational procedures determining how these services are delivered. There are four cemeteries in Leicester today:

• Welford Road (est 1849) which is included in the Register of Historic Landscape and is closed for new burials;
• Belgrave (est 1881) which is closed for new burials;
• Gilroes (est 1902) which is the location of Leicester's crematorium;
• Saffron Hill (est 1931) which is included in the Register of Historic Landscape, the Chapel Lodge and Gates of which are grade II listed.

We're told about current challenges faced by this service in the city:

• mercury abatement (there's a statutory requirement to reduce the amount of mercury vapour emitted into the atmosphere from fillings in the teeth of those being cremated);
• acquisition or extension of burial land (Gilroes has 3-4 years estimated capacity at current levels, Saffron Hill 5-6 years, less if proposed land extension to Gilroes doesn't proceed);
• memorial safety (a sensitive subject since memorials remain the property of the family of the decease and their upkeep is not the City Council's responsibility);
• systems (much information related to this service is recorded manually, it's costly to transpose large amounts of such records onto computer, large amounts of staff taken up with answering questions about historic burials that can require lengthy, complex and manual searches);
• multi faith provision.

While many of us would probably be interested in some or all of these issues, it's this last one that concerns the Council of Faiths most - obviously. In terms of serving the diverse faith communities of Leicester, the Jewish Torah was opened at Gilroes in 1902; a Muslim Janazgah was at Saffron Hill in 1985, and Hindu, Sikh and Jain facilities were introduced at Gilroes in 1989. The biggest challenge facing the Parks and Green Spaces Service in this topic area now is the provision of additional mourner accommodation at Gilroes.

Parks and Green Spaces identifies the main risk for this review as being "that individual religious groups think independently and pursue self interest." And their solution? "By using the Council of Faiths as an intermediary, rather than meeting with individual focus groups, we hope to mitigate the likelihood of this occurring."