NSW government permits 44 ha for burial sites

The NSW government has granted permission to the Catholic Metropolitan Cemeteries Trust to buy 44 hectares of land at Wallacia, in Sydney's west to provide 60,000 burial spaces over the next 50 years with more deaths due to Australia’s ageing population.

The site in Wallacia, current a golf course branded Panthers Wallacia, will be acquired by the Trust as burial sites in western Sydney will be exhausted in 28 years.

Annual deaths are due to more than double by 2050, compared to 2012, ABS data shows.

Burials make up about 30 per cent of interments in NSW.

"We will be providing to all communities much-needed burial space at affordable prices in a landscaped setting, mitigating the exhaustion of existing burial sites at our Liverpool and Kemps Creek Cemeteries, over the next five years," Catholic Cemeteries & Crematoria chief executive Peter O'Meara was cited as saying by The Australian Financial Review.

"We are seeing strong demand from various communities, who continue to prefer in-ground burial, based on their religious beliefs.”

Australia’s ageing population is driving demand in property not just land for burial but also aged care and independent living facilities.

"We will engage with the Wallacia Golf Club members and Penrith Council in the near future and look to provide recreational facilities that can be utilised by all in the western Sydney community."

The Wallacia site, currently the Wallacia Golf Course, is about 70 kilometres west of the Sydney CBD and close to one of the largest western centres, Penrith.

As a shortage of burial sites continues in Sydney, cemetery managers are forced to be more innovative. In 2013, Sydney's Woronora Cemetery transformed a rubbish dump into 945 high-tech graves using a new prefabricated system.