Mark Popard has been digging graves in South London,
Streatham Park Cemetery, for the past 30 years.
But in five years’ time the only graves Mark will be digging
will be reopened plots to take members of the same family.
Because in five years’ time, they'll simply be no room here for new graves.
Across Britain, cemeteries are running out of space and land
that was set aside for new plots has been swallowed up by housing
developments, school playing fields and even supermarkets.
London is suffering most.
The city planners like Giles Dolphin are now considering recycling graves
once all the cemeteries are full.
- Now we're used to recycling in other parts of our lives
but recycling graves, to a lot of people, it's going to sound quite horrific.
In actual fact, once one points out to them what's involved,
it's not horrific and most people would accept that a grave can be reused.
So long as a hundred years have passed since the last burial in that grave.
By that time, there’s, generally speaking, no remains left.
But if there are, then one can carefully and sensitively repackage the remains,
place them in the bottom of the grave space, and then use the space
that's remaining.
And that appears to be acceptable to most people.
With current laws preventing recycling, above
ground burial in mausoleums is a potential solution.
Streatham Park's is the first to be built in the UK this century.
It'll house 230 coffins on five levels.
Behind the granite front of each mausoleum, there's a sealed door
and behind that space for the coffin to slide inside.
Now, some of them are twice the depth.
They're known as companion mausoleums for two coffins end to end.
For husband and wife, for example.
And although all this is relatively new, some of the plots are already reserved.
- So you would lift the coffin up into one of the top layers
and as the service is actually happening,
you've got family members just standing around below.
Yes, you have. They're standing around
in exactly the same way that they'd be standing around a normal earth burial.
- But how does somebody come
to tend the grave, as it were, if it's 15 feet above them?
You can have a vase put on the outside of your granite cover to the mausoleum.
You would then have something like this that we have in the office
for people to use, which will extend to whatever height you like,
that will then unhook your vase.
You can bring it down, put your flowers in it and put them back again.
It's my mother's idea, her wish and her will to have us buried together.
The Camenzuli family were so keen
to guarantee their own personal burial space,
they bought a whole section of the mausoleum.
The cost up to £8,000 a plot.
We bought my father from Tooting.
He was buried 30 years ago. He was buried underground and my grandmother
and we brought them here so they can be only one family.
Well, it's like buying a house,
you put deposit down and one day, that'll be your second house.
Mausoleums are an old idea.
They were tried in Victorian times at sites like this in the city
of London cemetery, but without much success.
These catacombs was in actual fact built in 1856.
And by the beginning of this century, literally only 95 of them have been sold.
We have seen a return.
There are the few people still coming in and buying them, but
it doesn't seem to be the main option, no.
Three quarters of us opt for cremation these days,
but for those still preferring burial, traditional ideas will have to change.
- So for somebody like myself, if I live for another 70 years,
what are my options going to be for burial?
Well, it depends on where you live, of course.
You may well find that
in your local cemetery, there is still space in 70 years time,
but the chances are there won't be any new space,
and that the only choice you have if you want to be buried
locally is in the reused grave or recycled grave.
Whether we recycle plots or build mausoleums, putting off change
isn't an option.
To keep living space for ourselves, we'll have to find alternative ways
to accommodate the dead.