Plans have been approved to turn Whiston Woods in Rainhill into a cemetery with thousands of burial plots despite campaigners’ objections.
Knowsley Council had announced their plans to buy part of Whiston Woods and turn it into a cemetery in 2023, as burial space at the current site on Foxes Bank Lane had only three years of burial capacity left.
Whiston Woods is approximately 49.8 acres of woodland which is owned by Forestry England and lies on the boundary between Knowsley and St Helens, meaning access to the site is via the Knowsley highway network.
The proposal is to use less than a quarter of the site, leaving the remainder of the woods as a community woodland.
The authority submitted a planning application in February to neighbouring St Helens Council, as the site will fall within its remit.
This was granted by the council at the latest planning committee meeting last week.
Knowsley Council will pay almost £500,000 to St Helens to compensate for the loss of space.
In response to the decision, a Knowsley Council spokesperson said: “We welcome St Helens Council’s planning committee’s decision to approve the cemetery extension at the Whiston Woods site.
“The next step now is for the access arrangements and highways elements to be considered at the council’s planning committee later this year.”
Under the new plans around 5,500 additional burial plots will be created over the next 100-year period.
These plans have not gone without objections from local residents with campaign group Save Whiston Woods, which has over 800 members on Facebook, fighting against the plans.
The group fears the plan will cause irreversible harm to protected greenbelt land. Jackie Fox from the campaign group says the council are ‘failing to meet the national policies’.
Greenbelt land is protected by planning policy to prevent uncontrolled development and to keep the land open permanently.
Over 1,500 individual objections had been submitted against the development with many saying that it would cause ‘irreversible’ harm to the ‘openness of the woodland’.
Planning officers have stated that the development of the cemetery wouldn’t conflict with the five purposes of the greenbelt.
