NOWRA funeral director Ian Strathie has seen too many mourners have to farewell their loved ones from outside the chapel at the Worrigee Cemetery and has called for improvements.
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Mr Strathie said as the Shoalhaven’s population had aged and expanded the need for the Shoalhaven Memorial Gardens and Lawn Cemetery on Worrigee Road to be expanded had also increased.
He is determined to have the council owned chapel extended to accommodate large funerals.
“With large funerals it’s embarrassing not to be able to offer everyone a seat.
“I know council will say there aren’t the numbers to justify the cost and that there are only a certain percentage of funerals that are too large for the building but this should not be about numbers.
“It’s about the experience. People shouldn’t have to only invite a certain number of people to a funeral.
“A family only has one chance to do this the right way.”
He said he was concerned that with a generation of aging baby boomers coming up there would be a growing number of funerals spilling outside the building.
Mr Strathie has been involved with the cemetery since the beginning and was a member of the original cemetery committee.
“It was always intended that the use of the building be reviewed about 15 years after it was built,” he said.
Mr Strathie said that review didn’t happen and believed it had been proposed that the review be put off for another five years.
“I wrote to all the councillors last Tuesday before the council committee meeting imploring them not to defer the review.
“There was a unanimous vote to restart the council cemetery committee to take a look at it.
“The thing I want to know from the Mayor is when will be committee be formed and what time line will it follow in its decisions,” he said.
Last week, June Innes of Greenwell Point farewelled her sister in a funeral service that could not accommodate everyone who attended.
She, too, would like to see the space increased.
“We had 450 signatures in the book and I would say at least 50 others didn’t even sign it.” she said.
The seating capacity inside the chapel is 80.
“I’ve been to funerals there and had to wait outside, they open the doors so people can hear but if it’s cold or wet and windy even the people inside freeze,” she said.
