Community backlash over plans to build a cemetery to finance Kenthurst church

IT’S a ghastly concept for Kenthurst parents grappling with a proposal for a cemetery near St Madeleine’s Primary School.

Artist impressions of a cemetery planned for Annangrove Rd, Kenthurst.

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IT’S a ghastly concept for Kenthurst parents grappling with a proposal for a cemetery near St Madeleine’s Primary School.

The development application has been lodged with the Hills Shire Council to demolish the existing structure at the Annangrove Rd site to make way for a new church and a non-denominational cemetery with room for 3000 burial plots.

It would be a stone’s throw away from Marian Catholic College and St Madeleine’s Primary.

A Diocese spokesman said the cemetery, which had been planned since 2013, would fund the construction of the Kenthurst Parish church.

The cemetery would be near St Madeleine’s Primary and Marian College.

“(The church) has been the passion of the community for the past 30 years,” he said. “The proposed lawn cemetery development is needed as it will help contribute to the construction costs and debt repayments related to the building of the new church.”

Outraged parents met with members of the Parramatta Diocese in the school hall on Thursday night to vent their frustration over the plans.

Concerned parent Ainslie Allsop worried the construction of the cemetery, which will seal off a second entrance to the school site, could possibly be a fire risk.

“It’s so sad to see what’s happening to this community,” she said.

“We had a bomb threat earlier in the year which was scary and to think of having to get all of the children out through one driveway is just as scary.”

Neighbour Fei Guo said it was the environmental impact that concerned her and prompted her to hang a ‘No Cemetery’ sign outside her property.

“A cemetery is not suitable for the site,” she said.

Ms Guo said the geotech survey was flawed and in the event of heavy rain, the sandstone-laded land could not hold all the moisture with any run-off possibly becoming contaminated.

Ms Guo said she put up a sign outside her house to voice her displeasure.

She also said the diocese was not considering the “psychological wellbeing” of neighbours.

Dawn Edwards said she lives a stone’s throw away from the Annangrove Rd site and also believed the ground was unfit for a cemetery.

“I couldn’t even bury my dog in my backyard,” she said. “How can you bury people there?”

Neighbours and members of the school community said a childcare centre would better suit the community and the church’s bottom dollar.

The Diocese spokesman said it would work with concerned locals and was prepared to landscape the area to enclose it from public view and to install a 1.8m high hedge around the site.

“The parish is absolutely sympathetic to the concerns of local residents and will work with them on any reasonable points of view they might have,” he said.

“The parish maintains its willingness to continue working with Council, residents and parents to address their concerns.”