PART of Kingston’s Green Wedge has been earmarked as a cemetery under a controversial plan by Southern Metropolitan Cemeteries Trust to build a “Kingston Memorial Park” in Heatherton.
The Trust approached Kingston Council last week to outline its plans to buy about 130 hectares of Green Wedge land north of Old Dandenong Rd to develop the land for a cemetery and memorial park amid a looming shortage of grave sites across many of Melbourne’s existing cemeteries.
SMCT manages eight burial sites including the Cheltenham Memorial Park, Cheltenham Pioneer Cemetery, Springvale Botanical Cemetery and Bunurong Memorial Park.
The Trust is a not-for-profit manager of cemeteries and reports to the Victorian Department of Health.
Trust spokesman Leigh Funston declined to discuss the specifics of the Kingston Memorial Park when contacted by The News.
“The matter is before government so we can’t comment at this point while it’s being considered by government,” he said.
Mr Funston did say many of Melbourne’s existing cemeteries have limited spaces available to bury the dead.
“There are around five years [of supply] around many cemeteries.”
Springvale Botanical Cemetery has “about 15 years” worth of grave sites left, according to Mr Funston.
Bunurong Memorial Park is being developed and “is in large part a construction site” but will be an example of how cemetery sites could become places to visit with the addition of memorial parks and “garden landscapes” and “promenades”, he said.
“We’re trying to get people to think differently about cemeteries and memorial parks and to engage with them in the way Melbourne residents in the Victorian era did,” Mr Funston said.
“We need to make the cemeteries and memorial parks more recreational or ‘go to’ areas – a place for passive reflection and relaxation.”
Defenders of the South East Green Wedge secretary Barry Ross says the proposed Heatherton location for the Kingston Memorial Park “is definitely in the wrong spot”.
Cemeteries are allowed in green wedge areas but Mr Ross said the Heatherton land identified by SMCT for burial purposes “covers the best and much of the market garden land in Kingston”.
“The Kingston market gardens are very productive and with the rising concern about food security and ‘food miles’, we should be protecting and expanding what we have close to the city, not destroying this vital asset,” he said.
“There has been no public consultation in Kingston about this proposal and we are fearful that it looks like it might be delivered as a fait accompli without proper consideration of alternatives.”
Kingston mayor Cr Geoff Gledhill confirmed the Trust has outlined its plans for the Kingston Memorial Park to council.
“I don’t think it’s any secret that for some time the Health Department and various cemetery trusts have been looking for appropriate locations for future memorial gardens or burial space,” he said.
“The Trust is now talking to the Health Minister’s Department because that’s where it falls and we will await what comes back from them.”
He said if the Labor state government gives the go ahead for the Heatherton land to be used for a memorial park then private landowners will have to reach “a commercial agreement with the Trust” and this does not involve council.
A spokeswoman for Health Minister Jill Hennessy confirmed the government has received “a proposal from SMCT” regarding a possible memorial park at Heatherton but “no decision is expected any time soon”.
First published in the Chelsea Mordialloc Mentone News – 16 September 2015
This article originally made one incorrect reference to the proposed Kingston Memorial Park being located in Highett. The planned location for the cemetery is Heatherton as per all other mentions in the article and was amended on 16/9/15 to reflect this fact.
