Dignity Funerals, the UK’s largest publicly traded funeral firm, has failed in its latest bid to stop Huntingdon Town Council from building a new crematorium.
Dignity has been fighting a long planning battle to build its own crematorium in the Huntingdon area, while also seeking to block one planned by the town council.
Both schemes have been though various appeals and challenges since they were first mooted in 2017.
And this isn’t the first time Dignity has used legal action to try to block a rival.
Two years ago the firm fought a high court battle to stop King’s Lynn-based funeral director Thornalley Funeral Services from building a new crematorium in Norfolk, not for from two Dignity cremaotoria.
The challenge was ultimately unsuccessful and the new crematorium opened earlier this month, five years after the initial planning application.
In the Huntingdon case, which was ruled on today, Diginity was objecting to Huntingdon Town Council’s plans to build off Sapley Road, Kings Ripton, less than a mile from Digntiy’s planned site at Wyton.
Currently, there isn’t a crematorium in the area.
When the case went to trial last week, lawyers for Dignity argued, among other things, that the local council hadn’t properly assessed the significance of a nearby “heritage asset”, the remains of a Norman motte-and-bailey castle known as the Moat.
It also argued that the council didn’t properly consider the loss of agricultural land, and didn’t compare the two projects properly.
However, in her ruling, planning judge Mrs Justice Lieven rejected all of Dignity’s arguments and dismissed the case.
In her judgment she said the lawyers were taking “an overly legalistic and forensic approach” to both the planning officer’s report into the project and national planning policy.
