Sydney’s Carnarvon Golf Club potentially slated to become cemetery

A recent New South Wales Government audit into Sydney’s Crown cemeteries revealed multiple religious groups are set to run out of burial space by 2026.

Securing prime real estate in one of the world’s most expensive cities has vexed successive state governments.

Sydney’s Carnarvon Golf Club has been earmarked for conversion to a cemetery before an 11th-hour intervention from the premier delayed the announcement.

Faith leaders involved in consultation to find a cemetery site were advised of Carnarvon’s selection in November. But the announcement, penciled in for December 4, was pulled at the last moment amid concerns about community resistance, sources said.

Adjacent to Rookwood Cemetery, the Southern Hemisphere’s largest necropolis, 75-year-old Carnarvon golf course was considered suitable, given its location and the fact it is on Crown land, meaning the government would avoid the cost of compulsory acquisition, sources familiar with internal deliberations told the Herald.

Metropolitan Memorial Parks (MMP)’s confidential plans to convert the 45-hectare Carnarvon Golf Club in Lidcombe were so tightly held that neither the club, the local council nor the Labor MP were aware when contacted by this masthead.

GUEST: Lynda Voltz, New South Wales State Labor Member for Auburn