![\"Greenland](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/d3fc0e4d-51d8-4bf2-9c3e-1909afcd62f4.jpg\")
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Greenland Cemetery, Craigyhill, Larne is one of many in Mid and East Antrim that will continue to see Sunday burials<\/p>\n
Michelle Weir, Local Democracy Reporter<\/p>\n
Press AssociationToday at 18:15<\/p>\n
Mid and East Antrim Borough Council has agreed to shelve plans to end burials on a Sunday.<\/p>\n
The recommendation was made to councillors at a meeting of the council\u2019s Environment and Economy Committee last month.<\/p>\n
Minutes of the discussion, which took place behind closed doors, said that officers recommended restricting weekend burials to Saturday only.<\/p>\n
However, officers were told rural funerals on a Sunday were a tradition and any staffing issues were \u201cfor council to resolve not citizens of Mid and East Antrim\u201d.<\/p>\n
It was also stated costs were \u201cbuilt in\u201d to cover Sunday burials.<\/p>\n
It was pointed out that burial is one of the council\u2019s front-line services and consultation should have taken place with key partners. Interim director of operations Shaun Morley advised that staff resourcing would have to be reviewed.<\/p>\n
It was proposed by Alliance councillor Aaron Skinner and seconded by the DUP\u2019s Gregg McKeen to recommend the council does not revise its weekend burial services.<\/p>\n
In a statement issued after the meeting, Mr McKeen said: \u201cI feel the family should be given the option if they want\/need to have a burial on whichever day they want. In some cases, due to other factors, this might be their only option.\u201d<\/p>\n
Also in a statement issued after the meeting, Mr Skinner said: \u201cAs this was discussed in a closed council session, I am only allowed to repeat what I said which was that weekend burials are an important tradition in rural areas and it is a key front-line service that must be protected.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf there are staffing issues, then that is for the council to resolve. It is not an excuse to restrict the services open to our residents.\u201d<\/p>\n
Separately, at last month\u2019s council meeting, an earlier proposal by Mr Skinner to reopen household recycling centres on Sundays was unsuccessful.<\/p>\n
A recommendation to approve no change to opening hours was proposed by TUV councillor Matthew Warwick and seconded by Sinn Fein\u2019s Archie Rae.<\/p>\n
A director told the committee the cost of opening recycling centres for half a day on Sundays would be \u201cthe equivalent of closing on three weekdays\u201d.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Greenland Cemetery, Craigyhill, Larne is one of many in Mid and East Antrim that will continue to see…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":603787,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5011],"tags":[5816,1144,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-603786","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-northern-ireland","8":"tag-mid-and-east-antrim-borough-council","9":"tag-northern-ireland","10":"tag-uk","11":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115639947402645622","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/603786","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=603786"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/603786\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/603787"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=603786"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=603786"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=603786"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}