Residents protest over cemetery development

GARDAÍ were called to the scene of a protest yesterday as a residents’ association accused Cork County Council of ignoring its own environmental protection guidelines.

More than a dozen people protested outside St Oliver’s Cemetery, near the Model Farm Road, as council workers removed a section of 200-year-old hedgerow.

The council, which firmly denies it is breaching guidelines, wants to remove 70 metres of hedgerow and ditch as part of its expansion plans for the cemetery.

A spokesman for residents accused the county council of ignoring its submissions and of environmental damage.

“They (the council) want to knock the entire ditch and replace it with a one-metre high wall with a railing on top of it. They also want to put a footpath outside. We have no objection to the footpath, because there is space to build it outside the hedgerow. We also have no objection to the council removing some the hedgerow to create a maintenance entrance, but we object to them removing all of it,” the spokesman said.

The county council should integrate the hedge into its work programme for St Oliver’s Cemetery thereby implementing its heritage, cultural and biodiversity objectives as stated in the Cork Development Plan, the spokesman said. Residents are taking legal advice on the issue.

A council spokesman said it had received only one objection, which had been overruled. “We don’t accept that we are ignoring our own guidelines. A new boundary will be put in place and we will have appropriate screening,” he said.

The council intends to develop 935 burial plots at the cemetery.