‘Burials are more sustainable than cremations, using vastly less energy’

• DAVID Yaffe’s letter (We must resist the privatisation of public spaces by local authorities and English Heritage, July 11) stirs up passion in all residents who value their green amenities.

We pay our taxes, in some cases, concerned residents donate lands for the benefit of the public, and we expect to enjoy our open spaces without restrictions or disturbance from invasive commercial activities.

In our neighbourhood the Friends of Talacre Gardens had to fight tooth and nail to prevent a developer from building a road across our park hence ruining it forever. After a three-year battle, Talacre was finally designated in 2010 as a Town Green.

There is constant battle with Camden over their wanting to use the park for private events, which the Friends of the 10,000 sq m Talacre Town Green generally resist.

The park is the only green open space in Haverstock ward for its 11,000 or so residents. Many of them live in crowded social housing and having no garden of their own.

Nevertheless, we are aware of the cost of running a park which is so extensively used. Recently we were approached to help with watering newly-planted trees. Twice a week volunteers water the 13 trees and some dozen fruit trees. But that is only a small saving.

We came up with a solution that has not been taken up by Camden Council and/or the parks department despite the press giving it plenty of coverage and thumbs up.

This solution would be less disruptive than hiring the land to private concerns and, on the whole, quiet, very quiet – it would entail headstone-free burials.

Burials are more sustainable than cremations, using vastly less energy. A cremation uses as much fossil fuel as is needed to annually heat a detached family home.

Since many parks in London were once graveyards, we felt that residents should be allowed to purchase plots in their local park where they and their pets could be buried.

With the shortage of burial land in the city, that could be a huge earner for our park – on the understanding that there would not be gravestones.

Memorial park benches or new trees could be contributed, which would add to the beauty and needs of the community.

Our main concern would be that the money earned from such an endeavour be ring-fenced for the maint­enance and improvement of our park exclusively. Perhaps there should be an entity composed of residents and park officials to determine where the money is spent.

Already, after residents suffered the extraordinary disruption of the Dalby Street development, we saw our very substantial “section 106 money” (the term used for planning gain) paid by the developer, disappear. We now have to fight for every bit of improvement funds, which grates.

Our parks are not luxuries, they are a necessity for the physical and mental welfare of our residents. They must be protected at all costs.

PETER CUMING
Chair, Friends of Talacre Town Green, NW5