Southwark Council has applied to take another three acres of the Honor Oak Nature Corridor next to Honor Oak Park Station for 1,022 burial plots.
The Friends of Camberwell Cemeteries, the Save Southwark Woods campaign, are urging people to object by the April 3rd 2017 deadline – and get others to object too.
The Old Nursery site (Area B) is Metropolitan Open Land in a Grade II SINC, home to hedgehogs, owls, bats, reptiles, butterflies, bees and many other rare and common species.
In the 2016 Consultation, 86% opposed all burial on the site. Woodland and meadow burial were residents’ second and third choices. FOCC SSW called for the site to be made a nature reserve.
But instead Southwark is ignoring the results of its phoney ‘consultation’ and has applied for 1,022 burial plots on cocnrete headstone plinths – exactly like on land next door stolen for sterile burial plots from Honor Oak Recreation Ground over the last twenty years.
Inner city nature land is far too valuable for burial plots. Help save the Honor Oak Nature Corridor.
Friends of Camberwell Cemeteries, the Save Southwark Woods campaign are fighting to make the Camberwell Cemeteries nature reserves like Highgate and Nunhead Cemeteries, with respect for the dead and woods and nature for the living.
Below are just some of the reasons for objecting:
Area B should be declared a Nature Reserve as part of the Honor Oak Nature Corridor because:
- It is Metropolitan Open Land in a Grade II SINC, home to hedgehogs, owls, bats, reptiles, butterflies, bees and many other rare and common species of wildlife
- This is rare inner city nature land never used for burial
- Burial will lock up the use of this nature space forever, preventing any other public use
- 1,022 burial plots with rows of headstones on concrete plinths will destroy three acres of Honor Oak Nature Corridor, for just a few years of burial
- In your 2016 Consultation, 86% opposed any burial on this site
- Your application contradicts your own policy which recognises that biodiverse habitats are rare and valuable to Southwark residents and should be protected
- This land was promised for public community benefit, then swapped to ‘protect’ the Rec Ground which Southwark now refuses to guarantee
- The borough faces a 10% increase in population, all of whom will require access to more biodiverse green spaces not less
- Southwark residents are experiencing the same public health crises as other boroughs, including obesity and the impacts of deadly air pollution. The Council should be protecting and increasing natural wild places for residents’ mental and physical health and wellbeing
- Nature land is far too valuable to use for burial. A few years’ lawn burial plots followed by decades of sterility are no replacement for the beauty, tranquility and delight of nature
- Land is for the living. Our children need more wild green space to play in and learn and experience nature – not less
