THE crisis of Oxfordshire’s rapidly filling cemeteries has forced one parish council to buy a new burial ground.

Kidlington parish council, which has been looking for a cheap solution to the problem for a decade, has had to borrow £114,000 and use £60,000 of its own cash reserves to buy two-and-a-half acres of farmland off Bicester Road.

Space has nearly run out at the village’s existing cemetery at St Mary the Virgin Church, and the cemetery cannot be extended onto neighbouring land due to its high water table.

Now the council is preparing to buy a new plot of land, currently owned by The Philip King Charitable Trust, to serve the village for another 80 years. It has submitted a planning application to Cherwell District Council.

Parish council clerk Tricia Redpath said: “It is getting very close to the point where we cannot take new burials at the existing burial ground.

“We are hoping that if we get planning permission for this it will be available next year, because we could run out of new burial plots by then.

“We have really taken it to the wire, but it has taken years to get to this stage.”

She said ashes could still be taken to the Garden of Remembrance, built two years ago.

If the project is granted planning permission, a new access point and car park will have to be created off Bicester Road.

The council will borrow £114,000 from the Public Works Loan Board over 15 years to fund the project.

Parish councillor Chris Pack said: “Providing burial grounds is one of the few statutory duties that parish and town councils have, and we have been aware of the problem and the need to expand for some years.

“We have been salting away money into our reserves, but did not expect to pay as much as we are having to for the new site.

“We thought at one stage we would be able to expand the existing cemetery, but when the boreholes were dug, it became clear that wouldn’t be possible.”

Last year, the Oxford Mail revealed that the city’s packed cemeteries were set to run out of dedicated space for Catholic and Orthodox Christian burials within five years.

Oxford City Council announced it would spend £20,000 on investigating building the first new cemeteries in Oxford for more than 75 years, because only Wolvercote and Botley cemeteries have empty spaces. Both are expected to be full within a decade.

In May, Bicester Town Council announced it wanted to extend its cemetery onto a sports field for the third time.