The Wellbrook Funeral Home in Allenwood.
AFTER a 17 month wait, the Carroll family in Allenwood will build Kildare’s first ever crematorium behind the Wellbrook Funeral Home on the Lullymore Road.
This came to light earlier this week after an Inspector at An Bord Pleanala finally upheld the original permission granted by Kildare County Council in December 2022.
In his report he said: “the proposed development will not seriously injure the residential or visual amenities of the area…and s acceptable in terms of public health and traffic safety, and is not susceptible to flood on site, or further downstream”.
“We’d hope for completion in a year, year and a half,” said a spokesperson for the Carroll family.
“We would like to get started as soon as possible, possibly within a month or so. Our commencement notice is already being prepared,” she said.
“Their grandfather Willie Carroll was the first undertaker in Allenwood back in the ‘60s,” she said.
“It will be built on 10ac at the back of the funeral home, and we’ll still be able to use Wellbrook as a Chapel of Repose…it’s only walking distance from the village,” she said.
“We plan for a meadow, and huge planting of trees and shrubs, like a heritage park,” she revealed.
“A lot of money will be spent on it, and it will create a lot of jobs, but a lot has to be prepped because it’s on bog,” she said.
The family business was originally located elsewhere, but brought back to this location by present proprietor Brendan because this was where his grandfather lived.
“It had a small river running through it s he called it the Brook, and it also had a well on it,” said the spokesperson.
“We’ll be able to offer a one-stop shop – collection, viewing, repose, mass if they want it and then cremation,” she explained.
The family seem to have been entertaining expansive plans for a while now, having also recently opened up a new funeral home in Sallins.
The crematorium will be licenced for one oven, in line with 2012 regulations from the UK’s Department of Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA) – the closest guidelines we have.
This, in fact, was the most common tread of complaint amongst the third party opponents to the development, that “there are no national planning guidelines on the location of crematoria, and no specific regulations pertaining to their operation”.
There also complaints that it was going to be visible from the Grand Canal Greenway, that there would be odours, and that it was going to be built with 200yds (183m), contrary to a 1902 Crematorium Act – a full 80 years before the first such service was held in the country.
“Mount Jerome [Harold’s Cross, Dublin] has the shortest separation distance of 78m (83yds) to residential properties, and this permission was granted in 1998, prior to the adoption of the current UK guidelines, which were issued in 2019,” said the complaint.
This objection also voiced concern that the planned crematorium was in breach of the County Development Plan with regard to proposed developments in rural areas.
However, bother Council’s Environmental Health and Chief Fire Officers deemed the project “acceptable”, and had “no objections” respectively in both their reports.
The crematorium will be accessed through the existing Wellbrook Embalming Centre in Derrymullen, and will require its own crossing of the brook, “with extensive landscaping and screening”.
Presently, there are 10 crematoria in Ireland, two in Northern Ireland, one each in Cavan, Navan, Shannon and Cork, and the other four all in Dublin.
