Penguin68

You need to distinguish between roosting and nesting. All birds roost at night (owls excepted). The green parakeets roost in COC.

Birds won't be nesting now. There are sufficient trees locally that when they do come to nest, they will find somewhere appropriate.

edborders wrote:- The Council must obtain consent from the Consistory Court of the Diocese in the form of a faculty before any works within the consecrated areas may take place This is not (in London at least) so for local authority graveyards, although it is so for parish churches and churchyards. In fact a Diocesan Faculty (granted by the Diocesan Chancellor via application to the Diocesan Registry) must be granted for 'any substantial alteration to consecrated land within a municipal cemetery including removal of headstones and kerbsets'. In this case the 'consecrated land' is being restored to its original condition by the removal of scrub growth. I do not believe the church can interfere with the cutting down of trees in a muncipal cemetery. Issues of mounding, where this is not removing headstones and kerbsets may not be relevant - it might not be a 'substantial alteration'. However new roadways and paths may be considered a substantial alteration, if in a consecrated area (not all of a municipal cemetery will be consecrated, although areas with public graves will be). I suspect that the restoration of existing paths now overgrown might not be considered a 'substantial alteration'. If your advice is that a full Consistory Court is required I believe that to be in error - it is a far more standard procedure - it should be noted that the Church is generally in favour of re-use (assuming that bodies are treated with respect). The Church is considering (probably favourably) the move to lift and deepen from the previous reburial in (different) consecrated grounds - but this has not yet been approved. Mounding, of course, would not require re-burial. However the law regarding re-use of Private Graves is different in Southwark from the rest of London. Indeed, re-use of private graves may actually be forbidden in Southwark, until legislation is changed. You may also wish to note that Faculties are granted for specific areas, and are not (unless so specified) a blanket approval for all consecrated areas within a specific cemetery. Here is something you could focus on to keep Southwark straight.

They said that it doesn't need permission from the Church of England to cut down the trees and mound over the graves in Camberwell Old Cemetery. They don't. Church permission is only required when bodies are to be disturbed - and then ONLY for public burials. Which stands to reason. The Church believes that bodies once buried should not then be disturbed, unless clearly necessary. Cutting down trees and mounding over burials doesn't disturb the bodies buried there. Southwark needs permission from nobody (other than its own councilors) to manage its own cemeteries where this doesn't involve disturbing public burials.

If you were doing a new build or refurb for your business I suspect that M&S will have no financial stake in this until it comes to final shopfitting - when presumably they will also start to pay rent. In current circumstances not rushing into a financial commitment might well be the right thing here, so it may well be that they in fact don't have any urgency to set-up. This is a very different circumstance than faced by a business where this might be their only, or main, or most significant trading site.

It is your history and and your beauty that will be lost. Join us. And yet he specifically wants us to lose the option of future history by wanting to ban future burials. After 75 years, the needs of the present trump the memories (almost certainly no longer with living people) of the past. And the overgrown scrubland, with shattered graves and the residues of fly-tipping, is not everyone's idea of beauty (granted there are those that think than anything living and growing, apart from people, is beautiful).

the sorts of people that account for in excess of 2000 deaths annually in the UK. Actually, the last year (to June 2105) that is being reported shows 1700 road accident deaths (any are bad, but not 'in excess of 2000') - excess speed is seen as a contributory factor in about a quarter, as I read the figures, although these do come from RoSPA. Most of these deaths are not, as implied, of course in South London, nor are (many) linked to misuse of mobile phones, at speed. Hyperbole, in general, does not make good cases.

That's a really helpful clarification. Thanks

If you are driving from the North West come down via the M6 to Birmingham and then the M40 through Oxford and onto the M25 either to the M4 and to ED via Earls Court and cross the river at Battersea Bridge or divert to cross the river at Kew and thus to ED on the South Circular or stay on the M25 and come up via the A23 and Croydon, longer but completely avoids the centre.

The church hasn't told us that. And neither has the Council up until now. We have called the Church to for confirmation. It might be true. I might not be true. The Church is involved only when public burials are dug-up. It does not have to give permission for normal maintenance and ground works. If public graves are disturbed (i.e. bodies disinterred) that is an offence without church permission. Where Private burials are concerned, this is covered by Section 74 of the 2007 London Local Authorities Act, and assumes that private rights have been cancelled under section 9 of the Greater London (General Powers) Act of 1976. No burial disturbed may be less than 75 years old, the act requires 'lift and deepen', where bodies already interred will then be buried under new interments. What you are describing as happening would not in fact be covered by constraints as described for either Public or Private burials. It is normal (if much neglected) cemetery maintenance. It would be better to ensure contractors were meeting those requirements than failing to understand the actual legal position.

Lewis Schaffer has chosen to PM me as follows:- Do you work for the council or one of the contractors? I think you should state that you are not a disinterested party if that is the case. Do you have an interested in keep burial going in the cemeteries? Lewis Schaffer Nunhead, Save Southwark Woods For clarity - I have never worked for any council or building contractor. I have no interest (in the sense of partiality) for cemetery burial - indeed my personal preference would to chose not to be buried - I would prefer cost free corpse disposal, for me, as part of the normal refuse collection service. I do have an interest in the truth, in open dealing, in an absence of unnecessary hyperbole. I have lived very close to COC for close to 30 years and greatly enjoy its amenity, as a working cemetery, and wish it to continue as such. I find it offensive if, even privately, it is assumed that the only opposition to this pressure group is from those taking benefit from the council's policy. I do not normally disclose PMs (for obvious reasons) but this PM has insulted me.

From what we can tell, the Council says it doesn't need Church permission to cut down the trees, dump the dirt over poor people's grave, drive over the bodies of dead children and remove their headstones The council doesn't need Church permission to do its job of cemetery maintenance, nor to remove grave furniture (either for safety or to temporarily remove and replace for maintenance purposes). It does need Church permission for 'public' graves to disinter for any reason (other I think than an exhumation under warrant by the police). So it will only be 'driving over the bodies of children' in the sense that it is driving over the ground 6ft or so under which children are buried (which is what their mowers do many times a year). But then there have been many links on this thread setting out exactly what councils have to do under law - I referenced the key page 12 of one attachment which sets out all the prohibitions on councils in orderly cemetery re-use for burial purposes, one of which is to make a clear record of where bodies are inhumed when grave markers are moved or covered.

is because it's too narrow for a car and a cyclist to pass safely at all times Sadly that is also true on the roads where it is allowed - such as Melford Road, particularly when there is a bus using it!

A number of one way roads (for cars) now allow cycles to travel against the car flow. Cyclists are beginning to act as if this applies to all local one-way roads. On occasions cars turn following cyclists, not realising that the rules are different for different types of road user. (And cyclists anyway - some of them - rather feel that rules don't really apply to them). I am not surprised that these changes are encouraging local confusion. And yes, it isn't safe.

Your choice. Which is precisely what you wish to take from us.

I wonder why this group is so mournfully protective of the long dead, with no one left alive to mourn them, but so despises the wishes of those who are about to be bereaved and wish to have somewhere local where they can mourn and commemorate their loved ones?

No, exhumation means to removing remains from a grave - which is what they will be doing. Southwark's own document use the word. It is true that the any remains they find will be re-interred either in the same grave or somewhere else So the 'exhumation' - for private graves - will be for a matter, probably, of a few minutes, perhaps half an hour as the grave is dug deeper, the bones bagged and put at the bottom of the newly deepened grave. Not exactly what I'd call an exhumation. For public graves (where bodies are already buried together) the 'out of soil' experience will be longer, but with no other intent than reburial. 'Exhumation', whilst technically correct for the first part of the action, gives quite a different meaning to what is actually intended by Southwark.

The most reliable figures on crime (but not to a postcode or electoral district level) are from the National Crime Survey - all others will be biased by under-reporting to or recording by police. Those figures which stem from insurance claims will tell you only about insured people whose losses are above their excess.

dbboy - this is exactly what they are proposing, exhumations No, they are proposing re-interment - either in exactly the same spot, but deeper, or in other consecrated ground. Exhumation is all about removing a body from the ground, normally for e.g. forensic (sometimes historical) examination. Exhumation is not, in itself, about (obviously) re-burial. And re-interment of very long dead bodies, without traceable relatives to object. If I declared I wanted to dig-up a row of trees in a park you might (I am sure you would) object. If I said I wanted to re-site or re-plant trees there might still be objections, but of a very different sort, and some who would object to trees being dug up might well not to them being re-sited and re-planted. Words (as you well know) are important.

The attached document shows that the two possible strategies, where bodies are encountered, is 'lift and deepen' for private graves, where the body remains in situ but at a greater depth, and 'lift and re-inter' for public graves where the bodies are re-buried in consecrated ground (and only done with the permission of the Church). In both cases it is expected that the bodies will be treated with respect, and will be dead no less than 75 years (and often, in the case for instance of the wilded parts of Camberwell Old and New Cemeteries) for considerably longer. I doubt, in fact, whether such actions will in fact cause a furore (as they would for current and recent graves, which are not included in this policy). For those with the time, page 12 of the document linked above shows in great details the necessary constraints placed on authorities who wish to re-use graves - worth reading as it shows a very different attitude to remains than that implied or indeed stated by the anti-cemetery lobby.

From edborders We are against Southwark Council's plan to dig up or mound over graves and remove memorials in the cemeteries. Every grave over 75 years will eventually be dug up. So - 'dig-up' or 'mound over'? - obviously 'dig-up' sounds more sensational, so let's go with that then. Within two adjacent sentences we get contradiction - with the most gruesome being chosen as the runner. With the ground conditions we have, someone buried 75 years or more ago will not be leaving a lot to be dug-up. And quite a lot of the interments are actually of ashes in family plots. Where 'digging' does occur, and recognisable remains are uncovered, there are quite strict rules about re-internment. From:-http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-18505222 Strict rules apply to the exhumation of bodies. In England and Wales, the Ministry of Justice first has to grant a licence for their removal, it then has to gain planning permission and adhere to rules set out by organisations such as English Heritage and the church. Because of the age of most of the burial grounds this tends to be the Church of England. Reburial must also take place - usually in other nearby cemeteries. The graves in question date back at least 100 years, though many are much older. In some cases, they are unmarked by headstones and any living relatives are no longer contactable. As Draper adds, the lack of close living relatives could for some be the line between acceptable digging and not. "Some would argue that the whole thing about burial is actually more for the benefit of the living than the dead. Once the living connection is lost, then you lose completely the reason to rest in peace in that particular way." In practice old bodies are sometimes buried in the same spot, but deeper, to allow for another burial on top. Also see http://www.spectator.co.uk/2013/06/recycled-graves-coming-soon-to-a-cemetery-near-you/.

More and more hyperbole and misleading information... The '75 year rule' (in so far as it exists), starts with the premise that a burial which is more than 75 years old is unlikely to have living mourners visiting it - for a 'family' plot with multiple burials this would mean the last interment. Southward attempts to contact plot 'owners' before taking any action. Clearly, where there is an infant burial 75 years may not be long enough - siblings might well live longer. Over time (a lot of time) re-use may mean that the burial sites of all current interments may be excised, but we are talking, I would guess, a minimum of 75 years before that might happen, and very likely much longer. The idea that someone would turn up to lay flowers and find their loved one disappeared is simply fantasy - although the option, as you can with country churchyards, of visiting the graves of family members 100s of years dead is lost. I do not want yet another bit of park, particularly one which would have no management money for it be anything other than a dangerous wilderness which would probably have to be shut-off on health and safety grounds if nothing else and thus completely unavailable for local use as anything (other than for fly-tipping, as in the past when parts of it were criminally neglected). I enjoy walking amongst the older and new graves, I like it that locally we have a focus for grieving (if that's your thing), I think cemeteries are as much an amenity as parks, or indeed schools. And the pricing structure still very much favours locals. Had you focused on trying to ensure that the council's plans were carried out effectively and sensitively I would have applauded this. But your very clear aims to destroy the cemeteries, as cemeteries, is wholly (to me) unacceptable. If there is anyone out there in 'destruction' mode, it is you and your gang.

Claims against policies, surely.. Actually, no, I've just re-read the initial article and it's much worse than that - the article says:- 'For every 1,000 quotes recorded that declared a history of burglary, 61.2 were from households in Tulse Hill and Dulwich' That means (1) that the incidence is past (in the last 3 years normally, I think) and (2) that there is no evidence the quote was taken up. So the 'news' might reflect a past crime spree only... (probably doesn't, but there's no evidence for that). It may also mean only that people in SE21 are more honest about declaring a past history of burglary, or a simply more likely to have lived there for longer (and thus know of a past crime history). I really wouldn't draw many certain conclusions from this about future dangers.

The figures are based on number of claims against insurance quotes - thus the uninsured aren't included in this analysis. However, where 100% of houses are insured, then 100% of burglaries will result in claims (give or take). Where only 50% of houses are insured then, assuming that burglars are as likely to steal from the uninsured as the insured then the apparent 'rate' will halve. Indeed, if you make the assumption that if you are insuring things you will improve your security (often an insurance requirement) then burglars may actually target a greater proportion of uninsured (more vulnerable/ less security) homes. So the lower the contents insurance penetration, the lower the same level of burglaries per household will be reported in this type of survey, based only on insured households. Lies and damned lies, eh? Edited to add: - Even police statistics don't necessarily help here, as people often only report thefts as part of the insurance claiming process.

This is bad news. Point to point season tickets will no longer be available, meaning a commute from ED to London Bridge will cost ?140 per month instead of ?68. I am not sure this is certain - point-to-point will presumably still operate on trains starting outside the TfL area (i.e. outside the furthest zone) - I suspect that this will be more complex (and thus offer perhaps some changes from) the Oyster style charging on the existing Overground. There may well be opportunities to make representations about exactly how these lines will be taken over, and its impact on customers. Certainly, for you, this may be a worse case scenario (although presumably you would also welcome the opportunity for flexibility inherent in a fully integrated and comprehensive trains: buses: tubes system in London).