Inverness urgently needs to plan the construction of a new cemetery to avoid breaching capacity, according to a city councillor.
Liberal Democrat member Alec Graham has urged officials to begin the groundwork early.
Despite a gradual trend in the Highlands towards cremations, there is no room to expand the ancient Tomnahurich Cemetery and it is understood there may be limited space for extending Kilvean Cemetery.
Councillor Graham has warned colleagues that time is of the essence.
He said: “Kilvean has an expected useful life of maybe 10 or 12 years, and the time is not far away when Inverness should start identifying and possibly acquiring a site for another major cemetery.
“Kilvean was only bought by the former district council, I think, in the late 1970s when Tomnahurich was beginning to run out of space.
“In perhaps 10 or 15 years, at the most, we’ll need another one. I’ve no thoughts on where that should be. It’s a very sensitive decision.
“It should be on our to-do list for strategic planning, so that in the next year or two we begin to look at how we’re going to manage the provision of burial services, not just in the coming decade but in the many decades to come.
“I’m sure there’s opportunities to provide one, big, city centre cemetery that would maybe last 40 or 50 years.”
The council’s deputy leader Alasdair Rhind, a Tain-based funeral director for many years, said: “Alec’s right. Certainly for the city of Inverness you must plan long term.
“The council has a cut-off of a five-year policy. Where they feel a cemetery is approaching its capacity they cut off and won’t pre-sell lairs within that period.
“There still a fair bit of land around Kilvean but much of the land is attached to the crematorium where they have the spring, summer and autumn gardens where ashes are scattered. Obviously that land can’t be used for future burials.”
Mr Rhind said that in his area there is currently a 70-30 split in favour of burials but a growing trend towards a preference for cremation.
