The details below arrived in my inbox this evening in connection with Teignmouth Cemetery. Admins, I hope you will accept that this post is forwarded (with permission) to the mailing list in the hope that those researchers with ancestors buried in the cemetery are aware of the issues. My personal feeling is that this is a disgrace. pherecrates1 posted: "SAVE OUR CEMETERY Two years ago Teignbridge announced a proposal to convert the Chapel and other attached buildings in Teignmouth Old Cemetery, Exeter Road to residential accommodation. There was a huge public outcry and many people wrote to Teignbrid" Respond to this post by replying above this line New post on Teignmouth Tales from the Grave URGENT Action required by pherecrates1 SAVE OUR CEMETERY Two years ago Teignbridge announced a proposal to convert the Chapel and other attached buildings in Teignmouth Old Cemetery, Exeter Road to residential accommodation. There was a huge public outcry and many people wrote to Teignbridge to object to the proposal. All went quiet and the proposal was never submitted to the Planning Committee. In the mean time a Community “Right to Buy” proposal was submitted to Teignbridge to enable some protection against any future commercial development of the Chapel. That was rejected by Teignbridge on the grounds that the Chapel was not in community use. Catch 22. Of course it wasn’t in community use because Teignbridge had allowed the buildings to fall into neglect and had boarded them up. On Friday 13th January Teignbridge issued a new announcement (out of the blue) in the local paper (buried on p64) asking for Expressions of Interest for the renovation of the Chapel etc for community use. They have given only 8 working days to reply. On the face of it this might suggest that Teignbridge have had a change of heart. But cynically it could be the reverse …. By burying it on p64 and only allowing 8 days to reply they could be hoping that no expressions of interest come forward. They could then say that they have had no expression of community interest and would then legitimately pursue commercial development. Such a development could in turn lead (legally) to the conversion of the Old Cemetery land into land for building, destroying a significant part of Teignmouth’s history and heritage going back over 150 years. We need to marshall a lot of community support over the next couple of weeks if we want to protect the cemetery. If you agree to trying to keep the Cemetery and buildings in community use please send an email to that effect to: [email protected] If you are able to give any direct help in putting together an Expression of Interest, organising publicity and drumming up support please include that in your email as well. We already planning a few things and will let everyone know as soon as we have definite details. The blog with details is at http://wp.me/p6L6x9-2V