‘“We are very proud of the standard of care and high quality maintenance carried out by our grounds staff at Ringwood Cemetery”, says Councillor Neville Chard, Chairman of Ringwood Town Council Recreation Committee. 

“Management and maintenance of burial grounds is exceedingly expensive.  Although we charge for burials, income no where near meets the cost of maintenance.  This means that everyone in the town contributes to the cost of the maintenance to the Cemetery.  In order to keep that charge down, the Town Council decided that Ringwood Cemetery, like most others, should now be run on a Lawn Cemetery basis. 

This enables us to keep the quality of maintenance at a high level, whilst keeping the costs to a level that ordinary people can afford.  We don’t take decisions on the Cemetery lightly, we are all local people and we know about the need to abide by policies for the overall benefit of the town.

On the passing of a loved one, the last thing a family thinks about is compliance with any rules relating to a Cemetery.  That does lead to difficulties on occasions, most of which we can overcome.  However, whenever we make a special exception in any cases, someone else always quotes the exception to us to enable them to be treated differently from everyone else. 

Whilst we have every sympathy with relatives who want to make extra special arrangements in the Cemetery, we can only do that by making a significant increase either in the Council Tax or in the charges made for the purchase, and perhaps also an annual maintenance, of a grave plot. 

Unless and until we go down that route, the Town Council believes that it should continue to implement its Lawn Cemetery rules and asks all members of the public to take note of the well publicised regulations in place and freely available at both our office and undertakers.”

For further information please contact:

Terry Simpson
Town Clerk
Ringwood Town Council
Greenways
71 Christchurch Road
Ringwood 
BH24 1QY

Email: town.council@ringwood.gov.uk