Council urged to restore 'eyesore' twin chapels

A West Yorkshire council is being urged to save two 160-year-old "eyesore" chapels in a cemetery and bring them back into use.

The boarded up twin buildings at the entrance to Knottingley Cemetery on Womersley Road have been unused for the past decade and "becoming more dilapidated", according to some locals.

A campaign asking the Reform UK-led Wakefield Council to restore them has been launched, with suggestions the chapels could be turned into a florist or cafe.

Local resident David Nye said: "I have watched these gradually get more dilapidated over the last five or six years. My mum and dad rest in this cemetery and it's an eyesore at present."

One chapel was used by the Church of England and the other was used by non-conformists before burials.

Residents also said the buildings represented an important part of Knottingley's history.

Margaret Fiddes said: "It would be very good to be able to save them as an example of this kind of building, as well as being able to make use of them in the future."

Councillor Rachel Speak, leader of the Liberal Democrat opposition on the council, said: "They have been sitting a long time without being looked at and they have a lot of heritage value to the community."

Fellow Lib Dem councillor Adele Hayes added: "I live up the road, so if I'm coming down it would be so much easier if I could pick flowers up on the way in."

The council declined to comment when contacted by the Local Democracy Reporting Service, but Knottingley's Reform councillor William Garbutt said the authority did not intend to demolish the chapels.

"If we can save these chapels we will save these chapels, we don't want to lose them," he said.

"If we can get backing on these we will keep them. We will reuse them and we will keep them for another 160 years if we can."

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