RICHMOND COUNCIL GIVES GREEN LIGHT TO CEMETERY TAKING OVER LAST TEDDINGTON ALLOTMENTS
Richmond Council has controversially given the go-ahead for the last remaining thirty six allotments in Teddington in Shacklegate Lane to be taken over by the nearby cemetery, it was confirmed today.
Despite 62 objections from existing allotment holders and local residents and emotional representations from those attending last night’s Council planning meeting the plots will be used for future burial space.
Only last week Teddington Town told how pensioners Paul, aged 79 and Joy Cuff, aged 81, loved their allotment and how it kept them fit and healthy and saved them hundreds of pounds with a year round supply of fresh fruit and vegetables.
Mr Cuff appeared at the meeting with a bunch of leeks from his allotment and told the committee how important the allotment was to their lives and how ‘planters’ or allotments elsewhere were not practical.
Planters or ‘community growing spaces’ have been proposed for use by the allotment holders during the period of transition but Mr Cuff told the committee he could not grow strawberries in ‘planters.’
PA25/3013: Shacklegate Lane Allotment, Shacklegate Lane, Teddington PDF 2 MB
PROPOSAL: Change of use from allotments to cemetery use, including soft landscaping and associated works..
APPLICANT: Ms Ashlea Bernard, Head of Cemetries and Registration (Serving Richmond and Wandsworth Councils)
RECOMMENDATION: It is recommended the Planning Committee GRANT planning permission for the reasons listed in section 10 of this report. A full explanation of the officer recommendation is identified in section 8 of this report.
After the decision Mr Cuff told Teddington Town: “We are absolutely gutted but not surprised either. It was a rubber stamp job by people who don’t really understand the issues or feelings of the local residents.”
Another local resident, whose home is next to the allotments and offered her a view of pleasant greenery told of her fears of big funerals taking place outside her windows. On one occasion, there had been a giant video screen, the committee heard.
The controversy has attracted headlines in the Evening Standard and the BBC over the last week as well as local media.
According to the council papers the ‘change of use’ will cost up to £2m but work is unlikely start for over a year but as of December only THREE burial spaces remained at Teddington Cemetery. According to Council documents, the work must begin within three years.
