A group of allotment gardeners have slammed the decision to reclaim their gardens for cemetery use as ‘short sighted’.

Arden Marshall was left shocked after she received a letter from the Aylesbury Town Council saying they were going claim Tring Allotment for cemetery use.

The retired community psychiatric nurse is one of 94 gardeners at Tring Allotments who have now launched a petition to fight the plans.

If the allotments are dissolved for additional burial space “many members will no longer have a reason to get up each morning and will likely die sooner as a result of the council removing their most critical social networks,” Arden warned.

Bucks Free Press:

She said: “Many of these members are elderly, vulnerable, have suffered with mental health challenges or rely solely on their allotment community to provide their only source of daily social contact.

“Some forged these allotment friendships over 40 years ago and consider these relationships as central to their daily lives. Many would not survive without their network of familiar faces and most are too old or not well enough to withstand the enormous logistics of relocating to a new site.

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“Reclaiming our site will not fulfil the burial needs of the community long term, it will destroy lives and is a socially irresponsible and shortsighted way forward.”

Their Change.org online petition had attracted more than 1,000 signatures in just four days.

Aylesbury Town Council said in a statement: “This proposal has not been taken lightly and we do not underestimate the impact that this decision has on those residents affected by it. The land off Tring Road was purchased in 1934 by the then council to be used for the cemetery and it is now required to enable the town’s residents to bury their loved ones in the future and prevent an early closure of that cemetery.

“Aylesbury may be expanding rapidly, but the actual Parish of Aylesbury which the Town Council is responsible for as the Burial Authority remains the same and there is now the need to use this land as explained in the correspondence to those allotment garden tenants currently using the land.”

The Town Council was continuing to look for and consider the purchase of additional land for allotment gardens “where we are able to do so,” it said.  

The campaigners pleaded with the Town Council to “put the needs of the living before those of the dead.”