Preparations for a public ceremony at Tomlinson’s land will start immediately to allow for burials at the site.
The Cabinet agreed on Wednesday to begin burials at Tomlinson’s once the land is fenced and the plans for graves and buildings are finished.
Chief of Staff in the Office of the Prime Minister Lionel Max Hurst said the St. John’s Public Cemetery cannot accommodate burials unless they take place in family member graves, and the cemetery near the Lady of the Valley Church is almost full.
“The public cemetery has filled up, and burials can only take place if the cadaver is placed in a grave occupied by a family member or the remains of a family member…the cemetery being utilized next to it is reaching capacity fairly quickly. We have about 600 deaths a year, some years a little more; the idea is being able to accommodate that many cadavers each year,” Hurst explained.
Furthermore, Hurst explained that families do not support removing the dead from St John’s and burring them in the rural districts. To address this, he said cremation will become an option, with regulations to be adopted by the Parliament of Antigua and Barbuda to ensure certain standards are met at the new Tomlinson’s Cemetery.
Hurst said the Cabinet wants to ensure headstones are used and standardized to create a respectful burial place for loved ones. The Ministry of Works is responsible for fencing the land and completing preparatory work before burials begin.
“We are moving ahead with burials at Tomlinson’s…Maybe by the end of the year, after the fence has been constructed…” he added
Has the government addressed the water path/drainage issues that has been previously pointed out for this site?
Will we now see any returns on the 2 million dollars paid out thus far?
Most of communities in Antigua have several community burial sites different from the churchyard private burial ground. I believe that these communities burial sites should be accessible to the people living in those communities to bury their love ones. For example, I am living in Cedar Grove or Pigott Village and I died. My love ones should not have to travel all the way to the (Lady of the Valley Community Cemetery) south side of the island to be buried me. The closest community burial site for those two villages mentioned is Lambert Community Cemetery. Yes, Lambert is a small community cemetery which is understood. The government or the community can acquire more land space north side of the Lambert Cemetery from the Shoul’s to extend the burial site. As the Antigua population grow, we are going to need more burial space availability to bury our loved ones who passed.
The Moravian burial ground in Pigott Village needs to be reopened. This burial ground was closed over 40 years now because it was full. From what I understand that a grave can be open after 7 years. This means all the graves in this private church burial site located in Pigott can now open to receive the dead. Antiguans migrated overseas and some lived next door to large cemeteries in America, Canada, England, etc…