Campaigners welcome £750,000 burials pledge but warn it is ‘temporary fix’
Newham Muslim Burial Association is calling for a permanent site in the east London borough, but says spending commitment is a positive step
Campaigners urging Newham Council to tackle the mounting burial crisis facing Muslims in east London have welcomed a £750,000 commitment from the town hall to securing new space.
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The cash from Newham Council will be spent in the 2026-27 financial year and will go towards “securing in-borough burial provision” for the borough’s residents — some 122,000 of whom were Muslim as of the 2021 census — following a campaign by Newham Muslim Burial Association (NMBA).
Kamran Qureshi, NMBA chair, hailed the allocation as “a positive step”, but warned that it was “a temporary fix, not a long-term cure”. The NMBA’s campaign, From Life to Rest, is calling for a dedicated Muslim burial ground in the borough.
“We need a sustainable, multi-year strategy,” he said. “We cannot afford to put a sticking plaster on a systemic issue.”
Shortage of burial space is a Europe-wide crisis, but is felt particularly acutely by many Muslim communities both in Britain and in countries such as Spain and Germany.
While there is a dedicated Muslim area in West Ham Cemetery, owned by the council, it no longer has available plots. Most of the Muslims in Newham rely on the private Muslim cemetery Gardens of Peace in the next-door borough of Redbridge — which is the only east London cemetery to “tick all the boxes” for Islamic burial, according to NMBA spokesperson Atiyah Qureshi. But it too is quickly running out of space even as a third burial area was opened in 2024, partly owing to the high local death toll from the Covid-19 pandemic.
Additionally, some Muslim families in Newham struggle to pay for plots at Gardens of Peace. Burial in West Ham Cemetery for Newham residents costs between £1,810 and £3,628, but the cost of an adult burial at Gardens of Peace is £4,150.
One reason is that, while some London boroughs such as Tower Hamlets provide subsidies for residents to be buried at Gardens of Peace, a similar scheme does not exist in Newham.
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A spokesperson for Newham Council confirmed that the funding would be used to provide a short-term increase in burial provisions for local residents.
“We recognise the community need for assurance around burial provision and are taking active steps to review requirements for the future across all faiths and beliefs,” she said.
“It was agreed as part of the 2026-27 budget that a capital allocation of £750,000 would be invested towards providing a short-term increased burial provision for Newham residents. This funding is to be spent on securing in-borough burial provision for use by its residents. The provision will make sure that it is also suitable for Muslim burials as well as other faiths and beliefs as needed.”
Newham will head to the polls in May alongside voters in more than 100 other local authority areas nationwide. NMBA is calling for whoever wins control of the council — historically a Labour stronghold, though the party is now potentially under threat — to develop “a comparative strategy” addressing maternal health inequalities, faith sensitive palliative care and long-term burial provisions. It will hold a hustings event with mayoral candidates on 18 April.
