Agenda item

            (Mr. A. Hassard, Director of Parks and Leisure, attended in connection with this item.)

            The Committee was reminded that the Belfast City Council, as part of its approach to cemetery and crematorium development, had been engaged in a process to identify a site for development as a new cemetery.  Decisions around that process had been submitted to the Council’s Parks and Leisure Committee for consideration.

            The Director explained that the Council had been undertaking a process to identify a potential cemetery site for a number of years and several sites had been considered and rejected for a variety of reasons, including ground conditions, hydrogeology and location.  Currently, the only site that was under consideration was one at Dundrod which had been identified through an expression of interest exercise which the Council had initiated. 

            That site had been put forward by an agent acting on behalf of a company who hold an option on this site.  Officers from the Parks and Leisure Department, Legal Services and Estates Management Unit had held a number of meetings with the party who held an option on the site, along with their agent.  The Council was aware of who the landowners were but, at this point, had no direct dealings with them.

            The Director indicated that a number of studies had been undertaken in relation to the site at Dundrod and that those had identified a number of potential issues with it.  To allow the Members to take a decision on the site, the Council had commissioned URS, who had undertaken previous assessments for the Council in relation to a search for a new cemetery site, to undertake an analysis of all the findings of the previous four studies around the viability of the site and to provide a concise view on the issues and constraints to developing the site.

            He explained that a report outlining the findings of that piece of work had been submitted to the meeting of the Parks and Leisure Committee on 11th September, 2014, after which, that Committee had agreed that:

(i)      negotiations continue with the site owner or agent to ascertain whether or not a smaller portion of the site at Dundrod could be utilised for burial lands;

(ii)     a workshop be held early in the new year, at which all the information previously submitted to the Committee in relation to burial sites be submitted to enable the Members to review the current burial policy and the provision of crematoria; and

(iii)    an updated report be submitted to this Committee.

            The Director pointed out also that, in relation to the actions which had been agreed by the Parks and Leisure Committee, there were potential procurement issues around undertaking negotiations regarding the purchase of a smaller portion of the Dundrod site.

            After discussion, the Committee noted the information which had been provided and the decisions of the Parks and Leisure Committee endorsed at the Committee’s recommendation regarding the holding of the workshop in the New Year and agreed that a review of the current burial policy be undertaken.