SINN FÉIN Councillor Daniel Baker has called on Lisburn and Castlereagh Council to “act in good faith” after it came to light that residents living in the Colin area who leased graves in Blaris Cemetery prior to the council boundary changes in 2015 are now being charged more than three times the amount of Lisburn residents to have their grave reopened.
SInce 2015 Colin residents are now part of the Belfast City Council area.
Speaking to the Andersonstown News Cllr Baker said: “If you are a rate payer in Lisburn it is £350 to open a grave in Blaris. Anyone living outside the Lisburn and Castlereagh City Council boundary is charged £1,200.
“The Colin area fell under the Lisburn City Council boundaries prior to 2015 and a lot of families in the area leased graves in Blaris in good faith. They wouldn’t have known that there would be boundary changes. There was a grace period but a lot families were unaware of these additional cost.
“Within the past two weeks I have dealt with two families who have had to pay this additional money and they had no knowledge that it was going to cost £1,200 to open the grave until their loved one passed away.
“Councillor Gary McCleave has been working with Lisburn Council who told him that this was a policy change that was implemented following the introduction of the Super Council’s and that there was nothing that could be done about it. Our MP Paul Maskey has also been working on this issue for a number of years but it hasn’t progressed.
Blaris Cemetery from the air
“At a very emotive time in your life it can be distressing to have these additional costs added to your worries and the Council should act in good faith to do right by grieving families who leased their graves while they were living within the former Lisburn City Council boundary.
“I know from experience that it is a very stressful time when you come to burying your mother or grandmother and to have this additional stress is a slap in the face for grieving families.”
Cllr Baker said he is in no doubt that there are many families in the Colin area who bought graves in Blaris and are unaware that when they or their loved one passes that the family will be charged £1,200 to open the grave.
The Andersonstown News spoke to Sinead McCabe who paid the extra fee when her father passed away in 2016 despite her family having leased to grave in 2010.
She said: “My sister Angela bought the grave in 2010 when her daughter Lexi passed away. When my daddy died in April 2016 we had transferred from Lisburn City Council to Belfast. The undertaker told me that to open the grave it would be £1,200 and that it would need to be paid in 24 hours.
“If we were still within the Lisburn council boundaries then it would have been considerably lower. The grave itself cost around £800 in 2010 and then it was nearly double that to open it.
“My father never thought about life insurance and didn’t have it, so it fell on me to pay the money. Imagine what would happen if it was a family who didn’t have that money and couldn’t afford it.
“If you have a loved one buried in Lisburn before the boundary changes and then a few years later another one dies, you have to pay that fee” she added.
We contacted Lisburn and Castlereagh City Council to ask them about this issue but they did not respond by the time we went to press.
