COUNCILLORS have committed hundreds of thousands of pounds to improve cemeteries and crematoria.
Kirklees Council’s Cabinet decided yesterday to commit £600,000 in 2009/10.
The work includes a £50,000 waterfall in the garden of Huddersfield Crematorium to give grieving relatives a space for reflection. Kirklees will also spend £200,000 to create a glass-fronted walkway at the entrance to the crematorium on Fixby Road. The council hopes the walkway will separate mourners who are arriving at the crematorium from those arriving.
Kirklees will also spend £140,000 improving the roads and pathways at the crematoria in Huddersfield and Dewsbury and the cemeteries in Almondbury, Lockwood, Slaithwaite and Cleckheaton.
The council’s Cabinet member for regeneration Clr Molly Walton said this part of the spending was particularly important.
Speaking at yesterday’s meeting in Huddersfield Town Hall, she said: “I’m pleased that the pavements are being done. We get a lot of complaints from elderly people about this because some of the pavements are terrible.”
The council also committed £30,000 to improving trees in cemeteries.
Kirklees will also build a £10,000 spoil bunker at Dewsbury Cemetery to store soil excavated from graves to minimise inconvenience to mourners.
And £150,000 will be spent developing previously unusable land at Batley Cemetery.
The Labour / Lib Dem coalition Cabinet unanimously approved the spending.
