A public exhibition explaining the plan is to be staged by the Association of Natural Burial Grounds at St Peter’s Church, Arkley, on Saturday 21 May. (10 a.m. – 2 p.m.)
If approval is given, the promoters say it would help preserve a valuable green space between Barnet and Arkley.
Instead of the existing farmland, the site would be managed like a nature reserve and create a “peaceful, permanent green space that will be open to the local community”.
“The biodiversity of the land and its ecological value will therefore be enhanced. The proposal will only require minimal facilities, and any buildings will be designed to blend in with the surroundings.”
Public consultation for the plan is being conducted via the website www.yourshout.com.
Local residents are being invited to attend the exhibition at St Peter’s Church, where there will be feedback forms to assess the extent of local support.
The site backs on to Barnet Gate Lane, but is accessed via Mays Lane, and as part of the consultation, the developers are examining the possibility of providing a new. and safer approach road.
The promoters of the project insist that the facilities required on the site would be minimal.
“Families will have an environmentally-friendly way to bury their loved ones and the burial ground will not be laid out in the way of a traditional cemetery. To the casual observer, there would be no indication the site is a burial ground.
Natural and woodland burial grounds have been established across the country, and the nearest to Barnet – listed on www.naturaldeath.org.uk – are the Woodcock Hill woodland cemetery, Rickmansworth, Chesham Bois woodland burial ground, Amersham, and St Albans woodland burial ground, Keysoe, Bedfordshire.
