A PLANNING application for permission to substitute a conventional graveyard for what was to have been a 15-acre woodland burial ground was withdrawn by the applicant before councillors could consider it last week.

Waverley Council's western area planning committee was due to decide last Wednesday whether to allow the operators of Farnham Park Cemetery, Regent Memorial, to erect gravestones and monuments across the majority of the area.

The site at Hale Road, near the Six Bells roundabout, is not yet open and Regent Memorial has claimed that there is little demand for woodland burials and that the site is no longer financially viable for "green burials".

The proposed change had fuelled objections from dozens of residents, in particular those living in Oast House Lane at the top of the sloping site.

For full story, see this week's Farnham Herald.