Controversial plans approved to turn Stirling graveyard in to new memorial garden

dailyrecord.co.uk:

Community volunteers accused of being “disrespectful” by setting up a project at St Ninians graveyard have told councillors that years of extensive dog fouling on the site was far worse.

Stirling Council’s planning and regulation panel has now approved a plan to partially change the use of a former burial ground to a memorial garden.Stirling 4 Community (S4C) charitable community group’s application for a partial change of use of the graveyard to a memorial garden behind St Ninians Old Parish Church in Kirk Wynd also included repairs to gatepost and fencing and erection of storage.The site was a cemetery for past residents of the old William Simpsons Asylum, established in 1836.S4C announced last year they had joined forces with Plean-based William Simpsons Care Home for the special project to mark the designated interment area to honour those buried there.However, a number of elders and members of the St Ninians Old Parish Church congregation were among 17 people who objected to the application, along with the church’s minister, the Rev Gary McIntyre.The project also involves installing a memorial notice board, a small timber shed and two sets of raised beds and planters.Click here for more news and sport from the Stirling area.At a panel hearing last week, Jane Steel spoke of behalf of the applicants.She described the state of the site before their involvement as “an eyesore, with brambles and dog dirt over the entire area and the gate hanging off its hinges” and that they had managed to “significantly improve that”.She added: “We seek to change what is a very much unloved area of land and former graveyard.”She said 75 men from William Simpson were buried there, in largely unmarked plots.“The church have said it would