Upgrade for cemetery road
MOURNERS attending Lyndhurst Chevra Kadisha Cemetery in Melbourne will no longer need to negotiate the dirt path that leads to the venue's entrance. The road will be partially sealed from the Gippsland Highway to Taylor's Road just past the cemetery, and should be completed in about a week.
By Adam Kamien
MOURNERS attending Lyndhurst Chevra Kadisha Cemetery in Melbourne will no longer need to negotiate the dirt path that leads to the venue’s entrance. The road will be partially sealed from the Gippsland Highway to Taylor’s Road just past the cemetery, and should be completed in about a week.
The news has been welcomed by the Melbourne Chevra Kadisha (MCK), which has come under fire for the lack of facilities at the new cemetery, which was opened in 2007.
Director Ephraim Finch said high profile funerals for Private Greg Sher and Richard Pratt held at Lyndhurst this year, and potential industrial developments on vacant land across the road, had forced the Greater Dandenong City Council to act.
“After all that [Labor frontbencher] Tim Holding took up the cudgels and now it’s going to happen. We’re very pleased,” Finch said.
The council had originally asked the MCK to pay for the road, arguing the majority of road traffic would be mourners heading to and from the cemetery. However, the Victorian Civil and Administrative Tribunal found that was not the case and said the MCK should not have to foot the bill.
Jewish Community Council of Victoria president John Searle has been critical of the MCK for its failure to erect a permanent chapel at the site and said that while the development was pleasing, there was still work to be done.
“It would be pleasing if [Glasscocks Road] had been sealed in full, because clearly that is something that would be of benefit to the community,” Searle said.
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