The gates at Nunhead cemetery

[MrsBucket]

Just a warning if you are visiting Nunhead cemetery to make sure you leave plenty of time to leave the cemetery before the gates are locked, to avoid the rather nasty experience my family had there today. We were walking through the cemetery from the Limesford Road gate to the Linden Grove gate at around closing time - we knew we only had a few minutes, and the cemetery manager came by in his car and told us (and others who were also heading that way) that the Linden Grove gate was closed but unlocked, and we should just open it to leave.

As we approached the gate - we were only a few feet from it - the residents of the Lodge came out, drove their car through the gate, and then got out of the car and padlocked the gate. We were near enough for me to say 'Are you locking us in?!' without having to raise my voice at all. They were fully aware we were there, and they could clearly see me pushing my daughter in her wheelchair, along with the people we were with and other visitors to the cemetery. They protested that they had been 'told not to' let people out.

This was a very odd experience. Of course I understand that the residents of the Lodge shouldn't leave the gate unlocked when the cemetery is closed and no-one is around - but at closing time, when people are right there waiting to leave? That's pretty mean and vindictive. Made worse, we felt, by the fact that the individual concerned is our local councillor. I know that councillors are not always on duty, and have the right to a private life, but I would expect ANYONE going out through a gate and seeing people coming up behind them to let those people out too, just as a common courtesy! Somehow the fact it was a councillor, who should presumably have a small fleeting drop of public-spiritedness, made it an unusually depressing, small-minded encounter.

I'm guessing it's annoying, if you are fortunate enough to live where they do, to have to deal with members of the public coming past your home and through what you see as 'your' gate - but some clarity seems to be needed between what the cemetery manager tells visitors they can do and what the residents of the Lodge see fit to impose.

[newboots]

So how did you get out?

[alice]

what are you saying the councillor's house is 'the lodge'? - nice perk.

[MrsBucket]

Well when we called her on it, she had to hold the gates open - how could she not! I'd feel like a pretty rubbish human being if I were her.

[MrsBucket]

Am sure it's not a perk. But it is her address.

[Louisa]

So she did hold the gate open for you then? After youd made her aware you were walking up? I don't get what the issue is.

Louisa.

[nxjen]

I understand the lodge is privately owned. When the cemetery underwent the massive renovation, the lodge was renovated also and let by the council. The tenant exercised his right to buy, and who can blame him despite opposition from Friends of Nunhead Cemetery, and passed to private ownership. So not a perk for the councillor.

http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/cemetery-group-fights-lodge-sale-1416197.html

[alice]

still a bit of a perk to be tenant of such a property

[the-e-dealer]

surely to be a 'perk' you need to get it cheap or free perhaps part of a job otherwise buying a nice car with your own money could also be called a perk

[Mustard]

alice Wrote:

-------------------------------------------------------

> still a bit of a perk to be tenant of such a

> property

Maybe you mean resident, as it is privately owned.

[alice]

no I did mean tenant - as previous poster said the councillor was a tenant of the property before she bought it under 'right to buy'

[Mustard]

If you read the report nxjen linked to, it was a man who bought it originally from the council and he sold it on.

[alice]

wot no sleaze!

wonder , tho' what it sold for and how it was advertised.

[the-e-dealer]

why let facts get in the way of a good story

[sheilarose]

The councillor has lived in the lodge for much longer than she has been a councillor. There is absolutely no connection between her role and her residence.

[alice]

good to hear

[Henry_17]

Mrs B,

Could you expand on this a little? I think you have explained what happened over two posts, but it seems unusual to leave the detail that you were actually able to exit after an initial protest to a second post having been probed. Is the point that the young councillor initially tried to make a point by locking you in and then meekly and officiously appealed to "what they had been told" in the face of common sense? Or is it something more sinister, a more protracted altercation perhaps?