Plans backed for Muslim cemetery expansion

More people can be buried at the city’s Muslim cemetery after expansion plans were backed by councillors.

Up to 12 burials a year will now be allowed at Worcester Muslim Cemetery in John Comyn Drive as part of an application to build an extension, new pavilion, peace garden and an office.

The plan was backed by Worcester City Council’s planning committee at a meeting in the Guildhall on Thursday (September 29).

Cllr Pat Agar said the work was “tremendously important” and would benefit the community.

“It’s in the green belt and normally we don’t accept applications in the green belt unless there is a clear community benefit, and I don’t think there can be a clearer community benefit than the provision of a cemetery for a community that desperately needs it,” she said.

“I think it’s important that we consider that we are providing something tremendously important here.

Cllr James Stanley said: “This is an important and very significant enhancement of this provision. These are really sensitive moments in any family’s narrative, and we should do whatever we can to make that as respectful to them as possible.”

A decision was supposed to have been made in 2020 but was pushed back to allow for discussions over the size of the expansion.

Designs first put forward in 2019 showed that the cemetery would eventually expand with 785 new plots but the plan was redrawn last year to move proposed burial plots away from areas at a higher risk of flooding.

While the drawings show where the cemetery would be made bigger, no information on how many new plots would be built was included.

Worcester Muslim Cemetery has been told by Worcester City Council it can carry out up to 12 burials a year at the site.

The planning report said the extension would be used by members of existing families in the cemetery with others told to use Astwood Cemetery.

Former mayor and current city and county councillor Allah Ditta, who is the applicant, said he had “stayed away” from discussions between the council over the size of the cemetery and was “unsure” about exactly how far it would be expanded.