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Decision due on Highland graveyard extensions

Granny Barbour's Road, near Nairn
Granny Barbour's Road, near Nairn

A decision will be made on plans to extend a number of cemeteries in the north at a special Highland Council meeting on Thursday.

Burial grounds at Nairn, Fodderty, Tain, Portree, Acharacle and Kilvean in Inverness, will be considered for expansion.

At the transport, environmental and community services (Tecs) committee in March 2013 a report highlighted that they were reaching full capacity.

It was recommended that a 10-year cemetery extension programme should be developed – and this was approved.

Then in February this year another Tecs report showed that the burial grounds at Nairn, Fodderty, Tain, Portree and Acharacle all had less than five years capacity and that Kilvean had 10.

However in March the local authority dropped plans for the extension at Kilvean after the Scottish Environment Protection Agency (Sepa) raised concerns about flooding on the site, which was proposed to the west of the existing cemetery.

Rules governing burial grounds state that bodies cannot be buried with 164ft of any watercourse or 820ft of any spring, well or borehole used as a source of drinking water.

A new application has now been lodged at an alternative location between the existing cemetery and the A82 Inverness-Fort William road.

In Nairn, a proposed seven-acre expansion would be south-east of the existing cemetery to the south of Granny Harbours Road opposite the Nairn pet crematorium.

Plans for a one-acre site in Fodderty would be to the west of the existing cemetery and another single-acre extension in Tain would be located at the north east of the town beside the railway line.

In Portree, the expansion would take place beside the existing burial ground to the south of the town near the A87 Uig-Invergarry road.

The Acharacle expansion would be to the north of the existing cemetery.

The budget for the extensions programme is accommodated in the council’s capital programme.