Future burial and cremation options

Burials can take place in three of our cemeteries - Roselawn, Dundonald and Belfast City Cemetery

Roselawn is the only cemetery with new burial plots available. There are no new grave plots available in either Dundonald or Belfast City Cemetery, but burials can still take place in existing graves.

As cemetery space becomes increasingly full however, we need to think about how we will manage burials within the greater Belfast area in the future.

To help us do this, we are considering a number of options, including:

identifying a new cemetery site
providing additional cremation facilities
exploring other burial methods, such as natural burials

Natural burials

A natural or 'green' burial is when the body is not embalmed and is instead buried in a single-depth grave in a biodegradable coffin. This allows the body to recycle naturally into the ground.

Other features of natural burial include:

identifying graves with a simple stone or other marker
covering the whole area with grass and wildflowers
planting native trees so the area eventually becomes woodland, with paths leading to the graves
placing only fresh flowers (without any wrapping or containers) on graves.

We're investigating the feasibility of providing a natural burial site at Roselawn Cemetery, and we are undertaking soil tests as part of this process. We aim to bring the findings of this study to the Parks and Leisure Committee later in 2013.

New cemetery site

In 2009, we drew up a shortlist of four potential locations for a new cemetery. Following a preliminary assessment of each location, we reduced the shortlist to two sites - Lisleen and Nutt's Corner.

Following extensive testing at both sites, our findings indicated that ground conditions at Lisleen would provide a potential cemetery site for the wider Belfast area. However, work would need to be carried out to develop a management system to help minimise the impact on the water environment in the area.

Test results from Nutt's Corner showed that, in its current form, at least part of the site is unsuitable for development as a cemetery.

While these assessments were carried out, we commissioned a report to examine our assumptions about the need for a new cemetery. There are a number of reasons for this, including:

change in burial rates - trends show that the demand for burials is decreasing, as more people are choosing cremation as an alternative
Reform of local government - new council boundaries from April 2015 mean we will grow to take in around 50,000 additional residents
additional land is now available beside Roselawn Cemetery, which means that we could potentially extend this burial ground. This would be subject to planning permission which we have now applied for.

Our report suggested any new cemetery site should be 72 acres (29 hectares) in order to provide sufficient burial capacity for a 50-year period. This compares to the previous study which suggested a site of 168 acres (68 hectares).

These findings were discussed by our councillors at a meeting of the council's Burials Working Group on 10 August 2010. The group made a number of recommendations which were brought to our Parks and Leisure committee in September 2010.

The committee agreed that the Nutt's Corner site is not suitable, and will no longer be considered as a potential site for a new cemetery. In November 2010, the committee also agreed that the Lisleen site will no longer be considered as a potential site for a new cemetery.

We are currently undertaking a process to identify potential new sites. Updates will be published on this website when available.