Overview

• An FOI request by Friends of the Tunbridge Wells Cemetery revealed only four of 15 pauper remains were exhumed during the council’s 2020 clearance.
• The Ministry of Justice had mandated full exhumation and reburial of all bodies before any residential construction could proceed.
• Council officials maintain a specialist company carried out the work with reburial in another part of the cemetery and erected a memorial claiming all remains were relocated.
• A Diocese of Rochester letter confirming the land was unconsecrated has underpinned the council’s assurances on legal and religious grounds.
• Campaigners have intensified objections over the moral and procedural integrity of building 16 houses and four flats on the former burial site.