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Re St Nicholas, Pevensey

Chichester Consistory Court: Hill Ch, March 2012 Grave – reservation – churchyard – right to burial

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  22 August 2012

Ruth Arlow
Affiliation:
Barrister, Deputy Chancellor of the Dioceses of Chichester and Norwich
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Abstract

Type
Case Notes
Copyright
Copyright © Ecclesiastical Law Society 2012

The petitioners, a married couple, sought a faculty for the reservation of a gravespace for themselves. They lived outside the parish but one of them had been on the electoral roll for several years (the other more recently) and they were seeking to move into the parish. They had a long association with the parish, including the wife serving as an acolyte, involvement in the Sunday school and choir, and support of fundraising and maintenance activities. Family weddings, baptisms and funerals had taken place in the church. The PCC and incumbent supported the petition. The churchyard was likely to be full within about two years. In refusing the faculty, the chancellor acknowledged that there were many factors in this case that might favour the granting of the faculty. However, the particular position of the established Church created rights for all parishioners regardless of their religious affiliation and where space was limited there could be no presumptive priority for a certain class of individuals such as those who were regular attenders at church or who supported its ministry by financial giving or in other ways. In these circumstances, the granting of a faculty was not just or appropriate. [RA]