Parking concerns raised over new plans for new crematorium

A new crematorium building has been given permission in Waltham Abbey as traffic plans will have to be submitted to prevent disruption to people living nearby. Plans have been agreed for a new crematorium and ceremony hall building at the Sewardstone Park Cemetery in Sewardstone Road by Epping Forest District Council.

The crematorium would operate between the hours of 10am to 3.30pm to serve a maximum of five cremations per day. A new installation of an electric-powered cremator will produce more than 90 per cent less emissions than a gas creator, the operators say.

The site comes with 48 parking places which the crematorium says will be sufficient. But following concerns about parking overspilling onto Sewardson Road the council said parking plans will have to submitted before development can commence.

Councillor Sam Kane said: “We have had a number of incidents where residents opposite have come to me with real problems from the overspill from functions on that site - where we have a number of people parking on kerbside and blocking peoples’ drives. If there is overspill I am going to have to put in a scheme to redline the whole road and I don’t want to do that.”

Graham Fisher for the crematorium told the meeting: "We are only proposing a very modest increase in the footprints of the building at the side. It will barely be noticeable in the context of a very large site."

The existing permission for a crematorium allows for unlimited number of burial services to take place but the number of cremations will be limited to five a day.

He added: “Currently cremation services take place at the suite but actually cremations are done elsewhere. At the moment there is more traffic going to and from the site than there would be.”

References

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