Locals are outraged at council plans to build houses at a cemetery after it was revealed there are still bodies buried there.
Tunbridge Wells Borough Council wanted to build 20 homes over a former burial site at its cemetery where paupers were interred.
A baby named Frances Sarah Day was among the 15 bodies buried in the pauper’s grave between 1873 and 1928.
Despite the council being told to exhume all of the remains before going ahead with its plans, it’s been revealed only four of the 15 bodies have been found.
A Freedom of Information request submitted to the council by campaign group Friends of the Tunbridge Wells Cemetery revealed only George Langridge, Maria Thomsett, George Cross and George Payne were found and exhumed.
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That means at least 11 other bodies, including that of baby Frances, could still be buried beneath the site where the council hopes to build 16 houses and four flats.
Friends of the Tunbridge Wells Cemetery told MailOnline the council is ‘taking them for fools’ over the ‘immoral’ plans to build over the ‘sacred’ graves.
Following the revelation that only four bodies had been exhumed, campaigner Justin Quinn said: ‘It’s insulting to be told one thing by the local council only to find out via a Freedom of Information request that the facts are very different.
‘Many of us in the local community are emboldened by the sense that regardless of the questionable moral and legal implications of the development, we don’t like being taken for fools.
‘Our hunch is they are trying to keep it as quiet as possible because they are aware it wouldn’t be a popular if people knew what the situation was.’
The council first applied for permission to build 11 homes on the cemetery land back in 2019. The land involved sits within the cemetery’s walls but is now used as a storage depot.
Ministry of Justice directions said the council had to take precautions to exhume all of the bodies and bury them in the main cemetery.
A memorial gravestone was erected which claimed to have the ‘reinterred remains’ of all 15 paupers.
But with only four bodies exhumed, locals say they are being taken for fools and the gravestone is trying to give the impression ‘it’s all been dealt with’.
Athanasios Sermbezis is one of those fighting to block the development.
His in-laws are buried together in the working part of the cemetery, and both his children and grandchildren were born and raised in the town, making the cemetery a ‘sacred place’.
He explained: ‘For them to try and hush us and do it so quickly without really providing the evidence that has been cleared.
‘My concern is why they are trying to get planning permission and do this when there are people buried there.
‘We think from a religious point of view, it is immoral to build something on the top of a burial, even if it is an old burial. It is not morally right to build something where there are dead bodies.
‘People might say “we don’t care, we need houses”. Yes we need houses but not on top of dead people.’
A council source said the council were given a letter from the Diocese of Rochester, which previously had ecclesiastical responsibility for the cemetery, confirming the ground was not consecrated.
A spokesperson for the council said: ‘We can confirm that the bodies were exhumed by a specialist exhumation company, the detailed surveys and work took place during autumn 2020 once necessary permissions had been granted.
‘The found remains were treated with dignity and reburied in a different part of the cemetery.
‘A memorial was erected with the names of the deceased in the cemetery grounds and all the works were carried out in consultation with the Friends of the Cemetery.’
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