City officials warn that New Cemetery has no spaces left
Efforts are continuing to find a site for the city’s new graveyard . . . and it has now emerged that it may not be possible to find a suitable site within the urban boundary.
City Council Chief Executive, Brendan McGrath, told councillors at Monday’s meeting that while the local authority had identified a number of potential sites, “it may not be possible to find a suitable site within the city boundary”.
He rejected criticisms from some councillors that finding the new graveyard site wasn’t a priority with the Council, but he pointed out that “you couldn’t suffer a 28% drop in staff and continue business as normal”.
“A lot of work has been done in trying to identify a particular site but this is not an easy task. In cases, landowners have refused access to their lands while there are also a range of other factors to be looked at.
“These include factors like ground water, rock formations, access, traffic, parking and environmental issues. It is wrong to give the impression that this hasn’t been a priority,” said Mr McGrath.
Earlier in the meeting, Councillor Ollie Crowe (FF) urged the City Council to step up their efforts in identifying and securing a site for the new graveyard.
“It doesn’t ‘cut it’ to say to people that we have Rahoon as an alternative,” said Cllr Crowe.
Over two years ago, the City Council outlined plans to seek a site for a new cemetery as the existing facility at Bohermore reaches full capacity.
At last week’s City Council meeting, Chief Executive McGrath outlined that the New Cemetery at Bohermore did not have any more new plots available, but there were 600 spaces available at Rahoon.