Anger over plans to recycle graves

By Zoë Keown

FAITH groups have accused the Scottish Government of desecration over plans to exhume bodies and bury them in communal graves.

Due a shortage of cemetery land, Nicola Sturgeon, the health secretary, is controversially proposing that councils be allowed to remove human remains and bury them at greater depth to free up space for other burials on top.

Religious organisations however claim that the “lift and deepen” plan to recycle graves in this way represents a lack of respect for the dead.

The Scottish Council for Jewish Communities called the practice undignified and slammed the government for focusing their consultation paper more on the appearance of graveyards, as opposed to the faiths they represent.