A KIRKLEES council planning committee decision yesterday to throw out plans for a new cemetery near Berry Brow flags up two things.

One is that the proposed site at Hey Lane was, as many objectors suggested, totally unsuitable for a number of reasons.

The other, perhaps more worrying than the fact that this site should perhaps never have been chosen in the first place, is that there appears to be no back-up proposal.

Huddersfield is currently served by just three cemeteries which are now nearing capacity. There is an urgent need for more space, but apparently no other suggested sites on the drawing board.

Siting a new cemetery is a sensitive and complex task and one which should not be rushed as perhaps the current situation seems to underline.

The council urgently needs a proper, considered and researched, long-term strategy to deal with an issue that must be settled before the unthinkable happens and the town runs out of burial space.