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06
Nov
Plans to extend nearly full cemetery approved amid concerns
Pateley Bridge Cemetery is to be extended to cater for an estimated 73 more years of burials.
The cemetery, at Panorama Walk, is currently expected to be full in two years.
North Yorkshire Council yesterday (November 5) agreed to a half-hectare extension, which will create space for 314 burial plots, 48 natural burial plots and 364 ash internments.
The council’s Skipton and Ripon planning committee approved the extension despite concerns about parking.
A council report, which was written before the meeting and can be viewed here, said the new area would be “accessed by an extended roadway from the existing cemetery through the demolition of a small section of the existing stone wall”.
It added a turning area would be created with enough space for a hearse and one disabled parking spot but plans to extend other parking provision had been dropped because “sufficient car parking can be provided within the existing cemetery”.
Councillor Andrew Williams, a member of the council's Conservatives and Independents group who represents Ripon Minster and Moorside, questioned these arrangements.
Cllr Williams said he was particularly worried about older people struggling on foot on the hilly terrain to get to headstones.
He said:
I’m very concerned about the lack of provision for car parking for people using this cemetery extension. There’s no point having a cemetery if people can’t actually utilise it properly.
The plans were supported by Pateley Bridge Town Council. Town councillor Andrew Murday, who also represents Pateley Bridge and Nidderdale on North Yorkshire Council, said he didn’t think the application would prove to be contentious.
He added “the plans fit closely with what residents of Pateley Bridge and Bewerley expect and they will be disappointed if they are not accepted”.
Cllr Barbara Brodigan, a Liberal Democrat who represents Ripon Ure Bank and Spa, said people were becoming “slaves to cars” and there was sufficient parking. Cllr Andy Brown, the Green Party representative for Aire Valley, concurred, saying the council should not turn the cemetery into a car park.
Councillors voted in favour of the extension, which will be built on an agricultural field to the west of the existing cemetery in Nidderdale National Landscape (formerly Nidderdale AONB).
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