Councillors will be asked to progress plans to turn allotment land into cemetery land on Monday (February 17).
Reading Borough Council’s policy committee has been recommended to move forward with the proposal to use Henley Road allotment space to extend the Henley Road Cemetery as new burial ground.
The move will cost £3.13 million.
Reading will run out of burial space in 2030 but, by taking in the allotment site, which is accessed from nearby Chiltern Road and which can accommodate an additional 2,300 graves, the council believes this will allow sufficient capacity until 2044, based on the average number of burials over the last 10 years, which has been 165 per year.
Consultation ran between October and December. Of 330 responses, 279 answered a question on whether they supported the plan. The result was an almost even split.
A total of 137 opposed it (including 62 allotment holders) while 134 supported the plan and eight didn’t know.
If councillors decide to move the plans forward, a planning application would likely be submitted next year, the allotment would be closed by March 2028 and the work should be complete between January 2029 and December 2030.
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