£5,000 plan to drain marsh for cemetery

A Shropshire town council is to fork out thousands of pounds in a bid to sort out its waterlogged graveyard.

Land next to Newport Cemetery, which was earmarked as new burial ground, will now undergo extensive groundworks in a bid to allow burials to take place.

The future graveyard on Audley Avenue is presently marshland and town councillors have been told it is currently not suitable for burials.

The town council, which bought the land from Telford & Wrekin Council in 2005, will now fork out £5,000 to carry out a 12-month study into water levels at the site and a report on how to solve the problem of rising water.

Suggestions so far have included burying coffins in concrete tombs.

Today Councillor Tim Nelson, chairman of the leisure and environment committee at Newport Town Council, said they will investigate every avenue to sort out the problem before any coffins are buried.

"That part of the graveyard is on a water table and there is nothing we can do to change that," he said.

"But we can make the land suitable for burials and that is why we have allowed £5,000 for this study.

"We have fully involved the Environment Agency, who said this was a high risk area and it needs a study done, which will use boreholes to examine water levels over a 12-month period.

"The study will give us a definitive answer on what we can do."

Councillor Nelson said there were three likely options open to the council which involve draining the land, building concrete tombs or raising the surface of the land.

"I think a likely outcome will be for us to rise the physical surface of that area and then it will become acceptable for interments.

"It would involve us importing thousands of tonnes of soil but it's not an unusual thing to do.

"We believe it's a proper investment for Newport which means we can meet the needs for a minimum of the next 20 to 30 years."

The town council has already spent £2,500 for a separate geological survey of the waterlogged marshland.

Councillor Nelson added the current graveyard has enough provision for four years.