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40
the Secretary of State for the Home Department that "the procedure
for cremation and that for earth burial should be more
closely assimilated" now, and not when the number of cremations
has reached 50 per cent. of the total deaths.
Burials and Planning in an Area with a Population of 111,000.
There are enormous demands for land at the present time.
including agriculture, houses, playing fields, parks, schools, etc.
In each case larger areas of land are required for these purposes
now than formerly. Even allowing for the continuing rise in the
numbers of cremations in relation to the total, the land requirements
will be something in the order of an average of 200 acres per annum
for, say, the next 20 years; which means a total of 4,000 acres in
that period. As, in the main, this has to be provided near to
large towns, and unless the necessary steps are taken to reduce
the number of earth burials, it is clear that land convenient for
large areas will be made unavailable for other purposes essential
for living, as the area mentioned in the previous sentence would
provide sites for 50,000 houses.
The estimated cost of laying out 120 acres in the land in
the district, excluding the Chapel, but consisting of paths, drainage,
soil drainage and ancillary buildings, is approximately £330,000,
and this figure is borne out by a recent extension to burial ground,
which cost, with the provision of roadways and drainage, about
£2,700 per acre.
The burial ground of 120 acres is designed to provide for
3,000 interments per year and makes provision for about 70 years'
life. As against this, a modern crematorium, with the necessary
paths, etc., including two Chapels, would cost something in the
order of £100,000, depending, of course, on the site chosen and
other circumstances. A crematorium of this size would deal with
at least 3,000 cremations per year, so that the capital cost of laying
out a burial ground to deal with approximately the same number
of people is at least three times as much as that required to establish
a crematorium.
To this problem there are two solutions, (1) one of cremation
and (2) the carrying out of earth burial on forest and other lands of
no agricultural value.