Promoting a sense of community through the bereavement process using excellent design and aesthetics
A welters® Cemetery Village™ is a carefully ‘designed’ and affordable area within a cemetery that incorporates a multitude of below and above ground full body burial and cremated remains interment and memorial facilities creating the ultimate in customer service options provision.
We can achieve this sensitively without the disturbance of existing remains which allows the cemetery authority to re-use areas of land that are difficult to bury in or do not have the required depth or ground conditions to facilitate traditional earthen burial.
welters® Cemetery Villages™ are a process of progression, a new and pragmatic look at old problems, tearing up the rule book of local authority procedures and protocols to establish positive outcomes with financial viability.
- Essentially, installations are mostly in ground that could not be utilised for traditional burial in the first place – at all.
- Cemetery authorities have an obligation to provide “fit and decent” burial provision if a burial service is being provided.
welters® Cemetery Villages™ can also be created as new build cemeteries in the same way but on a larger scale that allows the use of very problematic ground conditions which enables the land selection process to be much wider and varied.
Cemetery Villages™ are designed fundamentally to “promote community through the bereavement process and beyond”.
They do this by providing:
- Multiple interment and memorial options
- Sustainable and affordable structural modular interment cells
- The correct balance of architecturally sympathetic decorative stonework
Being ‘Community Facilities’ Cemetery Villages™ are carefully designed not to allow an overpowering or ostentatious look or feel.
Although we do carry out large scale construction projects, welters® Cemetery Villages™ critically are NOT construction projects but low level phased specialist and sensitive installation schemes provided on a fixed pre-agreed unit price to ensure that it is compatible with local burial fees and charges.
welters® Cemetery Villages™ are an affordable, communal and sustainable municipal public space for the interment and memorialisation of loved ones created with the correct balance of sustainable materials and procedures.
Engineered graves, natural degradation?
In situations where the advantages of using engineered systems from a facilities management, cost, cultural (Muslim burial), memorialisation and safety perspective are required, but traditional earthen degradation and/or backfilling is also required then a welters® burial ring system can be used in exactly the same way as a burial chamber to design and build the schemes in a way that will allow contact with the earth using a honeycombed foundation system.
Culturally acceptable?
Various cultures across the Globe have adopted all procedures for thousands of years and for various reasons such as religious beliefs, weather conditions, practical ground conditions or a combination of all these various elements.
The human race have been burying remains above and below ground since the dawn of time, so none of the main principles of “preserving” remains, “burning”, or allowing remains to “naturally decay” are new, but all seem to be a fundamental human need and not ‘negotiable’.
It’s not a new idea we have simply made it affordable and relevant to today’s procedures. Prior to our reintroduction of municipal solutions 25 years ago the Victorians in the UK utilised the bricking up of graves ‘vaults’ and mausolea/catacombs as procedure for interring the remains. As the procedures where relatively expensive at the time this was reserved mainly for the wealthy.
We have now been able to make these options accessible to all denominations and disposable income brackets through affordable and sustainable materials coupled with our UK based production and site support.
What happens at the end of a specified lease term?
Critically the cemetery operator does have management options:
- It is important to allow the extension of lease terms as required from the front end to allow existing members of the family to extend for as long as required.
- Management has an option to leave the remains in place and do nothing.
- Management has an option to exhume and cremate although unlikely if the family have selected full burial, but can be done.
- Management could exhume and re-inter into a new communal facility in a reduced size casket “repository”.
Note: The cemetery authority cannot exhume without a licence from the Ministry of Justice.
There is also the option to extend the chambers up in a modular way. The important thing is that there are “options” later.
Pre-selling?
Pre-designed and installed schemes allow the pre-selling of grave spaces. This not only gives families peace of mind and choice but allows the authority to secure ‘cash flow’ to ensure the sustainability and on-going investment into the future provision of the communities. The best way to preserve anything is to ensure its financial viability.
welters® are constantly looking at new ways to finance the solutions through partnerships.
Environmental credentials?
Apart from factors such as using land not currently useable for traditional burial; our structural components are manufactured using recycled materials wherever practicable, the decorative wet-cast limestone is a locally quarried material and granite components are designed out wherever possible to leave the element of importing to a minimum. A one piece cast burial chamber will prevent the egress of any toxins into the surrounding area or water courses. We also operate tree planting schemes as standard.
- CULTRALLY EMBRACED, PRACTICAL, AFFORDABLE, AND ENVIRONMENTALLY SYMPATHETIC.
- USING LAND THAT CANNOT BE USED, SAVING SPACE, SUSTAINABLE, FINANCIALLY VIABLE.
We believe that there is no burial crisis in the UK, just misconceptions about how land can be identified, utilised, the cost and the practical implications.
