Court of Appeal allows crematorium development in Surrey green belt

The Court of Appeal has approved plans to build a new crematorium on green belt land between Godstone and Oxted in Surrey, in a ruling that the court said was “inevitably going to excite controversy”. Locals opposed to the development, known as Horizon Crematorium, argued that it would harm the green belt, but in 2021 a planning inspector found that the limited harm done would be outweighed by the benefits. Residents challenged the ruing in the High Court, arguing that the location of the development was in breach of the Cremation Act 1902. The decision hung on the definition of “crematorium” under the Act, which states that crematoria need to be located at least 200 yards from the nearest dwelling and 50 yards from the public highway. Horizon plans to build a main building with a celebration hall and a furnace, and also have an area where urns can be interred and a garden. All these areas, as they are related to the incineration of corpses and the storing of the ash, come under the definition of “crematorium” under the Act, lawyers for the appellants argued at trial. This put the planned crematorium too close to roads and dwellings. The judges disagreed. “In my judgment, bearing in mind the underlying purposes of the statute, section 5 of the 1902 Act is not concerned with the distance of houses from open areas within the site of a crematorium, even if those areas are landscaped, planted or surrounded by walls (as gardens of remembrance or memorial gardens often are) or contain structures of the type proposed by Horizon for storage of the ashes,” Lady Justice Andrews said in the ruling. “Its underlying concern is the distance of houses and roads from the location of the burning process and anything directly connected with that.” She said the definition “does not extend to anything which is not a building or part of a building”. “It is clear from the plans that, on the correct interpretation of the statue, all the potentially relevant parts of the proposed crematorium fall within the permitted zone,” she said. The appellants also brought two points relating to floodwater, which the judge dismissed, saying similar issues had been raised in an earlier case. “This appeal should be dismissed,” she said. Wathen-Fayed v Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities [2024] EWCA Civ 507; [2024] PLSCS 90 Court of Appeal (Sir Andrew McFarlane President, Family Division Lady Justice Andrews andLord Justice Snowden) 10 May 2025 Image by imageBROKER/Shutterstock