Southwark Plans for Camberwell Old & New Cemeteries.

[Penguin68]

Do SSW support burial for all in Southwark?

To be fair, I think she did answer that with:-

We are for the stopping - except for those deceased with current burial rights - all burial in inner city London - including Southwark. And for the graves of local residents to be protected and the nature, used by local residents, to be protected.

[oddlycurious]

So she'll ensure that SSW remove all references to religious discrimination from their website and social media?

[nxjen]

HopOne Wrote:

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> edhistory Wrote:

> --------------------------------------------------

> -----

> > So, I'm right.

>

> You are right in that Camberwell Council purchased

> the area for burial in 1901. Apart from that you

> are about 50 years out of date, times change. The

> Rec has a strong established community use, by

> design.

Your earlier post quoted from an LCC report, not their decision which is not the same thing. Are you able to direct us to their decision regarding this planning matter? Anyway, when the LCC's successor the GLC was disbanded, most of the powers devolved to the councils so it would seem to me that it is questionable whether anything decided, or not, by the LCC was still relevant as it can be overturned by the body who is now responsible for planning.

[HopOne]

This is a fair point but it is also true to say that Camberwell Council no longer exists either.

[nxjen]

HopOne Wrote:

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> This is a fair point but it is also true to say

> that Camberwell Council no longer exists either.

Not sure that's relevant as Southwark Council was formed from three Metropolitan Boroughs, one of these was Camberwell so represents a continuation, and this was the situation when the GLC was abolished in the 1980s.

[Siduhe]

I don't have any up to date info or know the full background, but see below for what was said at various public meetings last time the issue about Honor Oak Recreation Ground being used for burial came up (several years ago).

http://www.eastdulwichforum.co.uk/forum/read.php?5,1442128,1456217#msg-1456217

[Burbage]

oddlycurious Wrote:

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> Do SSW support burial for all in Southwark?

There is a more relevant question, perhaps. And that's what Cameron and Schaffer's game is. Especially in the light of the comic's unexpected elevation to 'Technical Director' of the organisation that no longer knows its own name, their titular expansion to engulf a legitimate, and friendly, Friends group, and the inflation of their presumptive remit to cover the whole of London, if not the planet.

I'm guessing this started out as an imitation of a Greenish landgrab - the usual being to bully your way to a management contract over a harmless piece of wasteland, and then go begging for funding to pay yourself a decent salary on the back of charitable contributions, taxpayer's money and/or the toil of inadvertent volunteers. There are a few of those about, and some have even won contracts from the DWP to implement the workfare nonsense (those brambles don't prune themselves), so it's not impossible.

But that wheeze, if such it was, failed. Partly on the simple grounds that, as cemeteries have been used and reused legitimately for millennia, and the laws are very clear about it, there's nothing remotely for them to cling to. And partly because the council, very sensibly, got on with its job regardless of the placards. SSW's stunts did, in passing, cost the council (and thus the taxpayer) an awful lot of money which it hasn't, as yet, recouped. But here's hoping.

Despite that defeat however, SSW (or whatever) managed to persist, like a bad case of something icky, expanding their ambitions to cover both dead and undead, and playing discriminatory anti-discrimination cards like the icing on a very wrong sort of sandwich. They've got some sort of support from somewhere, though, or the spacefillers of the local rags wouldn't be recycling the drivel so avidly, but I'm baffled as to what it is, or what it's supposed to achieve. One thing, on current evidence, is certain - they won't be snaffling any consultancy contracts from the afterlife's bewildered - not least because consultancy implies the possession of some sort of knowledge, if not experience. Perhaps more likely is they're attempting to upholster electoral hopes.

The economy is slow, I'll grant, and it may not be a pure coincidence that all this activity came shortly after the dissolution of a certain company, and the attempted shuttering of a certain charity (not a very effective shuttering, given the Charity Commission reckon the 2014 accounts are now 645 days overdue). But a councillor's allowance isn't very much and, even so, requires more of a candidate than the ability to unhinge themself on a local forum to the tune of daytime telly.

So I'm still baffled.

[nxjen]

Lovely post!

" ... the ability to unhinge themself on a local forum to the tune of daytime telly."

There's one word here that might provide the explanation

[JoeLeg]

Sounds like Burbage knows a thing or two about SSW? Intriguing...

[Sue]

nxjen Wrote:

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> Lovely post!

>

> " ... the ability to unhinge themself on a local

> forum to the tune of daytime telly."

>

> There's one word here that might provide the

> explanation

:))

[nxjen]

"They've got some sort of support from somewhere, though, or the spacefillers of the local rags wouldn't be recycling the drivel so avidly, but I'm baffled as to what it is, or what it's supposed to achieve."

Local papers have cooled considerably. As far as I can see, Southwark News hasn't reported on SSW since the end of 2015. The recent article published in the hard copy of the South London Press (jpeg posted by Blanche yesterday) is quite a balanced article and includes a reasoned and reasonable statement by the Chancellor of Southwark Diocese as to why they have agreed to the work being undertaken, providing a balance to the predictable hyperbole that is quoted from "Technical Director Lew Schaffer."

[oddlycurious]

"it may not be a pure coincidence that all this activity came shortly after the dissolution of a certain company, and the attempted shuttering of a certain charity (not a very effective shuttering, given the Charity Commission reckon the 2014 accounts are now 645 days overdue)"

Well now I'm intrigued. Care to name names? It's OK - SSW are entirely happy with a interpretative approach to data and facts...

[HopOne]

Sorry Burbage, there is an awful lot of conjecture and inaccuracy in your post. This also continues the ad hominem themes and obscures the important points in all this. I will attempt to inject some balance but given previous experience here my hopes are not high...

* there is not the slightest chance that the SSW campaign is actually cover for an attempt to land a management contract;

* though you are correct about historic reuse of graves, the Camberwell Cemeteries (and Nunhead) are excluded from the legislation that allows reuse. The council acknowledge this but plough on with their strategy even though this aspect underpins it;

* there is massive local opposition to the loss of valued greenspace and woodland. I think there are many, like myself, who are less fussed about reuse of graves, but it is nonetheless an important issue for many, it would be insensitive to pretend otherwise, so have no problem with it being raised. Given the point above it is actually very pertinent re any new burial space created which might not otherwise be needed;

* have no idea what the point is about a company, a charity & a candidate. Without any actual detail this does indeed sound unhinged.

[Burbage]

oddlycurious Wrote:

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> Well now I'm intrigued. Care to name names?

The names are no secret, being on easily-searchable public registers, but they don't, as yet, seem particularly relevant to the anti-cemetery campaign, or the possible motives behind it, except that their defunctitude presumably left some time on some hands.

[Penguin68]

Burbage concluded So I'm still baffled.

I had always thought that the initiating actions were all about building a comic scenario to be used in the circuit - hence the trolling and hyperbole to stimulate content. It was all good copy. Like many things it then seems to have got some life of its own - and to have involved some people who are taking it all at face value. I think some of it was about doing stuff simply because they could. Not perhaps helped by 'right-on' sympathetic churchmen who didn't actually know their own rules, or were persuaded that rules which did exist for parish land also existed for municipal cemeteries as well.

[Penguin68]

the Camberwell Cemeteries (and Nunhead) are excluded from the legislation that allows reuse.

I think that there is nothing to stop the Council applying the specific terms of that legislation even though the cemeteries were not included in it, on the basis that the legislation was allowing something to happen which had not been allowed before, where it applied, but this had not been necessary for the Southwark cemeteries - which were at the discretion of their council 'owners' (and their inheritors). By following the legislation they are adopting what is already seen as legal good practice. I don't believe they are excluded from doing this by legislation, rather they could have chosen to do something different.

[HopOne]

They are specifically excluded.

[Penguin68]

You should not confuse being excluded (i.e. made clear they are not included) in legislation with any suggestion that they are thus forbidden from following it. Their exclusion, I believe, stems from their legal status at the time being different from those covered by the legislation (which will have been a Private Bill) normally governing incorporated entities (i.e. such as councils). I believe there is no legislation governing re-use of cemeteries covering Nunhead and Camberwell, and where the law is silent the council have chosen to adopt practices which match those where the law is not silent. This would seem prudent. The difference is that they are not obliged to follow these practices, but I believe are free to choose to.

[nxjen]

If Camberwell and Nunhead are specifically excluded from the burial legislation in the sense that reuse of graves is forbidden, SSW could have mounted a legal challenge, they would easily have been able to find a lawyer keen to make their name to represent them on a pro bono basis. But they haven't, nor do they mention this "illegality" on their website or used it at any stage in their sometimes tortuous discourse.

[Penguin68]

The real issue here, and it is not a big one, is that the 'rules' that Southwark have chosen to follow are not, in fact, legally binding on them. They could have chosen 100 years, or 30, as the cut-off before re-use was allowed, they could have chosen not to 'lift and deepen' for private graves and so on. However, I believe that choosing to act consistently with the rules that govern other London cemeteries was the most prudent course, and least open to challenge. [The rules governing the church's involvement with consecrated land in municipal cemeteries are, however, I believe binding under other legislation].

[HopOne]

This may help:

http://moderngov.southwark.gov.uk/documents/s29472/Appendix%20E%20Burial%20legal%20and%20national%20policy%20framework.pdf

I think if they did lift and deepen private graves then this would be open to legal challenge.

[Blanche Cameron]

This week's Southwark News, in full.

Blanche Cameron

Friends of Camberwell Cemeteries / Save Southwark Woods Campaign

07731 304 966 [email protected]

[www.savesouthwarkwoods.org.uk]

Twitter: @southwarkwoods Facebook: Save Southwark Woods

Friends of Camberwell Cemeteries was founded as Save Southwark Woods in January 2015 to stop the destruction of the woods and graves of Camberwell Old and New Cemeteries.

We are for maintaining recreational activities already taking place on cemetery grounds, such as the Recreation Ground and the Allotments.

We are for preserving the cemeteries as Memorial Park Nature Reserves, like Nunhead or Highgate Cemeteries.

[JoeLeg]

So....you've lost, and are now resorting to using accusations of religious discrimination to get your own way.

That was never part of your argument until you realised you were going to lose. I personally think it's despicable. You plainly don't care about religion, so this shows you up for the charlatans you are.

And you're still refusing to answer straight questions. Coward.

[Sue]

JoeLeg Wrote:

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>

> Coward.

Probably best to stick to facts rather than make personal attacks?

Difficult I know given SSW's general modus operandi.

[oddlycurious]

Having failed to stir up a religious storm, SSW - apologies, FOCC (Friends of Camberwell Cemeteries) - are now trying a won't someone think of the unmarked WWI graves? angle.