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The Guardian - UK
The Guardian - UK
National
Matthew Weaver

Highgate cemetery drops controversial maintenance building in £18m revamp plan

Ian Dungavell stands next to Karl Marx's tomb. He is photographed in winter and wears a black quilted anorak; the trees are bare in the background.
Ian Dungavell, the chief executive of the Friends of Highgate Cemetery Trust (seen here in 2019), said FHCT had ‘listened carefully to the views of grave owners’. Photograph: Teri Pengilley/The Guardian

Highgate cemetery has axed plans to build a controversial maintenance and toilet block as part of an £18m revamp of the graveyard, after grave owners warned they would exhume the remains of their loved ones if the building went ahead.

Grave owners at the north London cemetery cautiously welcomed the removal of what they called a “bunker” from a planning application that sparked dozens of objections, including from Jeremy Corbyn, the actors Jonathan Pryce and Bertie Carvel, and the widows of the actor Tim Pigott-Smith and the sociologist Stuart Hall.

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