Hundreds sign petition against Portsmouth funeral home bid
PROTEST Residents are objecting to a Southern Co-Operative funeral offices in Tangier Road Copnor being converted to have its use changed to allow it also to become a chapel of rest. Picture: Malcolm Wells (120142-5938)
NEIGHBOURS have voiced their disgust over a plans to open a funeral parlour in their street.
Homeowners in Tangier Road, Copnor, are unhappy with The Southern Co-operative’s plan to convert its existing funeralcare offices opposite The Tangier pub into a chapel of rest where bodies can be viewed and stored before funerals.
The office already sells coffins and arrangements are made there with people to have their loved ones buried or cremated.
Residents have put up ‘Stop dead bodies coming to Tangier Road’ posters in their windows and a petition has been gathered with 300 signatures.
Lesley Wood, 64, who lives next to The Co-op funeralcare office, said: ‘I don’t want my grandchildren looking at dead bodies.
‘Everyone is up in arms. We put up the posters because the plans are not right.
‘There will be more traffic and the presence of a funeral home is going to lower the value of properties in the street.’
The council’s planning committee rejected The Co-op’s initial application for the office to become a parlour at a public meeting in November because of the high number of complaints from residents.
Now The Co-op will appeal the decision at another meeting with residents and committee members on February 1.
Julie Coleman, 50, of Tangier Road, said: ‘We’ve been told that we won’t see any bodies being put in the parlour because they’ll be covered by a white cloth.
‘Unless they use invisibility jackets we’ll be able to see everything. I’m totally disgusted by the plans. It doesn’t fit in with our community.’
Graham Lymn, head of operations for The Southern Co-operative End of Life Services said: ‘Our objective is to provide a facility where friends and relatives can have the option of paying their last respects.
‘Bereavement is always a traumatic time for loved ones and it’s our duty to ensure that everything is done to make things as uncomplicated as possible for them.
‘The arrival and departure of the deceased would be in a discreet private ambulance.’
Residents have until Friday, January 27 to make their objections ahead of the meeting.
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Friday 25 May 2012
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Comments
There are 111 comments to this article
Page 1 of 8
MattWin
Tuesday, February 14, 2012 at 08:07 AMPlease, please, please, can we organise a Zombie Flashmob down Tangier Road?! It's clearly what the locals are expecting, so would be a shame to disappoint. More seriously, this is why it's such a stupid move to put locals in charge of planning decisions, as the government intends. They're clearly bonkers.
NewsHound
Sunday, January 22, 2012 at 05:50 PMIt does all seem a bit daft. Barrells on Fratton Road is right next to social and private housing, within sight of a 1,000-pupil girls' school and no-one complains because of the discretion with which it - like other funeral directors - conducts its business. And Barrell's really looks the part - all a bit Pyscho-gothic with shadows even in the daytime. Wonderful place. A city landmark. Tangier Road is already a main thoroughfare to and from the city's large sixth-form college. I am seriously asking myself if I would object to the property next door to me becoming a funeral parlour. I have to say, honestly, I wouldn't mind at all. The Co-Op operates one of the finest, kindest bereavement services in the country, by the way, all for free to those who need it; and I wish it well. I am sure the planning process will come to a common sense decision in the end.
snapdog
Saturday, January 21, 2012 at 12:24 AMHmmm wonder how Mrs Wood got permission for her roof garden?
painter
Friday, January 20, 2012 at 06:54 PMOh no they have been on south today ... Glad she's not my neighbour !
beany
Friday, January 20, 2012 at 04:35 PMI am quite frankly embarassed by all this. I live in Baffins, 4 mins from the co-op funeral care 'shop'. I recieved a flyer about stopping dead people coming to my area through the door, late one evening. Read it. Paused. Thought. And shrugged my shoulders. My only thought really, was for the elderly people who live in my road who would have recieved that same flyer and the possible confusiondistress this kind of propaganda could cause. Whilst I can appreciate that it would be odd to live next door to a funeral home, but really, do we know who has passed away in our homes? My house is over 100 years old now. Surely the co-op would have thought this through, with regards to the moving of the cadavers? I can't imagine it looking anything like Primark changing their windows. I personally give co-op my support, it s a small 'shop' in a local area, and when my time comes at least my family won't have to trek miles to come and say cheerio. To be brutal, we moved here 10 years ago, there was a hardware store, a bakery, a post office in it's own shop...now we have kebab and takeaway shops. I'm thankful it's not another one.
Monkeynews
Thursday, January 19, 2012 at 12:55 PMI don't think I've ever seen a campaign by local residents backfire so spectacularly. Love the "Road of the Immortal" comment below.
painter
Thursday, January 19, 2012 at 11:31 AMPlease The News keep this story on the website, I do love coming on here to check the new comments and read the old ones to make me laugh
snapdog
Wednesday, January 18, 2012 at 10:11 PMFunny how the view of death has changed the Victorians accepted it for what is was- part of life, and Grandad would have been laid out in the parlor. Children would have had their photo taken with deceased siblings, but then that was the done thing and no one thought it odd!.... Nowadays it seems it is a taboo subject... especially in sleepy Tangiers road where no one dies... road of the imortal... they will make millions on their properties
spensersayso
Wednesday, January 18, 2012 at 09:47 PMI used to live in the area and never met mugs like this, it really is hilarious, the funniest thing is a cemetery about 5 mins walk from the proposed "chamber of horrors" were dead bodies are paraded in coffins and then buried in things called funerals, i would be embarrassed to be a resident of tangiers road, and what the butcher was thinking is that people would connect the bodies to his open display of dead animals in his window, what a bunch of bananas. lol.
BrigitteB
Wednesday, January 18, 2012 at 09:29 PMBetween this story and the Crematorium debate in the Havant Section, everyone might as well start keeping Grandad on dining room table!
MINTMADNESS
Wednesday, January 18, 2012 at 07:20 PMOnly just noticed this, what a stupid fuss over nothing. Some good comments here already, have these people nothing important to worry about in life, lucky them.
PUPPPU
Wednesday, January 18, 2012 at 04:33 PMComment removed by moderator
donellaogilvielees8
Wednesday, January 18, 2012 at 12:16 PMCan i just ask... where does it say in this article that the chapel of rest will be made out of glass and bodies will be paraded on the streets like puppets???....errr it doesn't. so why the complaining that you don't want your children or grandchildren seeing dead bodies.. im pretty sure they wont. People who live in fratton don't go on about the chapel of rest in Barrells Funeral Directors do they? The bodies aren't going on display in glass coffins dipicting a snow white scene and surely if a child saw a coffin it would educate them in the fact that where there is life there is death. But, I suppose this is Baffins. As for more traffic??? I can't see how that will affect it seriously the people who are moaning about it need to realise that things change in time, new building are erected and old buildings are taken down. Stop moaning! please!
monster munch
Wednesday, January 18, 2012 at 10:38 AMIs this a joke ? April 1st is still quite a way off !
Rational man
Wednesday, January 18, 2012 at 08:55 AMBrilliant comments.....you would have thought the Co-Op were proposing to have the newly deceased on full display in the shop window by the reaction of these people.
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