BURIAL spaces have run out at a Mirfield church.

Now, members of St Mary's Parish Church hope to transform an adjoining field behind Dunbottle Way into a new graveyard with the potential for 2,500 new plots.

Parish representatives are in talks with Kirklees Council and Yorkshire Water to allow the work to go ahead.

"People in Mirfield no longer have anywhere to be buried," said the vicar, the Rev Peter Craig-Wild.

"It has been on the cards for a while but now the churchyard is full."

He said discussions with Yorkshire Water were moving forward slowly.

The water company dug a rainwater sewer across the field in question and the church wants to settle a long-running dispute with the company over its positioning.

Regulations brought in by the Government in 1997 say bodies cannot be buried within 30m of a watercourse.