Meeting of the Parliament 22 March 2016
The amendment that inserted section 42A at stage 2 was lodged to address an issue that had been identified by the Local Government and Regeneration Committee when it considered the bill at stage 1. During that stage, we looked at the Cremation Act 1902. Section 5 of the 1902 act, “Site of crematorium”, stipulates:
“No crematorium shall be constructed nearer to any dwelling house than two hundred yards, except with the consent, in writing, of the owner, lessee, and occupier of such house, nor within fifty yards of any public highway, nor in the consecrated part of the burial ground of any burial authority.”
In their written and oral evidence to the committee, a number of people quite clearly asked not only for that limit to be included in the bill, but that it should be modernised. The Federation of Burial and Cremation Authorities said:
“Rather than have the 200-yard and 50-yard rules removed, the FBCA would like legislators to take action to protect these vital locations and prevent the siting of subsequent developments literally up to the curtilage of the crematoria grounds.”—[Official Report, Local Government and Regeneration Committee, 9 December 2015; c 3.]
That led the committee to say in its stage 1 report:
“The overwhelming majority of the evidence we received asked for the ‘200 yard rule’ to be retained and strengthened. We also noted the substantial confusion around how this rule works in conjunction with the planning system. We find it undesirable that the Bill does nothing to tackle this level of confusion.”