A WIDOWER who could not bury his late wife locally has welcomed plans for cemetery expansion near Warlingham.
Peter Wyer, of Westway, Caterham, said he was "left in pieces" after being told he could not lay his wife Susan to rest at nearby St Mary's cemetery, off Church Hill.
Mrs Wyer, the mother of his three children, had to be buried miles away at All Saints Church in Warlingham in February 2011 after Tandridge District Council said there was simply no space left at St Mary's.
Now Mr Wyer, 50, has backed a controversial scheme to enlarge Greenlawn Memorial Park, despite widespread opposition locally.
A proposed 22-acre extension to provide 7,000 more burial plots was rejected by the council's planning committee in February.
But now applicants Croydon Council, which owns the site, has appealed to an independent planning inspector against that decision.
Mr Wyer said: "I welcome the fact that one of our local councils is making an effort to procure a site to bury the dead.
"When Susan died I asked that she be buried in Caterham.
"The answer was 'sorry, but the cemetery is full'."
However Warlingham resident Jeremy Pursehouse said: "Croydon has plenty of land elsewhere it could use.
"It's just cheaper and easier to use Greenlawn, and there are no Croydon voters affected."
He warned it would lead to "creeping urbanisation" in the green belt, fuelling traffic congestion and putting nearby Chelsham Place livery stables in jeopardy. Writing on the Warlingham Facebook page, Steph Williams said she and others played as children in the woods, lanes and fields near the Greenlawn site.
She added: "I don't want to see it all ripped up and covered in ornamental lawns and tarmac."
A Croydon Council statement said there was a chronic need for extra burial capacity locally, and no other appropriate sites had been identified.
The impact on the green belt would be "low or insignificant", it added.
