The area in yellow is earmarked for the extension project and the section marked in blue is the cemetery. Photo: Mepa

The Superintendence of Cultural Heritage is not objecting to adding 2,880 graves to the Santa Maria Addolorata Cemetery as long as it falls in line with the original design.

A development application was filed in February for excavation works and the construction of 2,880 graves and adjacent charnel houses. It also includes the construction of a boundary wall, including ashes urns and mild steel entrance gates, and opening part of the wall to link the existing cemetery and extension.

In its submissions, the superintendence said it did not object in principle to the extension as long as the semi-circular plaza designed by Emanuele Luigi Galizia in the 19th century was reinstated and integrated into the project.

The access gate had to replicate the existing 19th century gate in style and a works method statement had to be submitted. The works also had to be archaeologically monitored, the superintendence said.

The application file is being assessed by the case officer.

The new expansion project was mentioned in Parliament recently when Health Parliamentary Secretary Chris Fearne said it would be taken in hand in the new year.

Mr Fearne pledged the Health Department’s commitment to ensure the cemetery would continue to have the respect it deserved throughout the works.

It would remain open to the public with construction taking place in phases.

The superintendence noted there were various archaeological discoveries, including ancient rock-cut rooms in the tal-Ħorr area. The site earmarked for the development was covered in dumped material and the superintendence pointed out that any development there could lead to “accidental discoveries” posing a threat to cultural heritage.

There are about 4,400 pending applications for new burial sites

The extension has a footprint of 23,000 square metres.

There are about 4,400 pending applications for new burial sites with the first among the lot dating back to October 1991.

Replying to a parliamentary question tabled by Nationalist MP Ryan Callus in October, Health Minister Konrad Mizzi said that a planning permit for the extension of the Addolorata Cemetery had lapsed due to what he said were “delays by the previous administration”.

The Health Department then stepped in and a project team was tasked to again draw up and finalise the required formalities to ensure the extension reflected the growing demand for burial sites.

Extending the cemetery had been promised several times but never fulfilled.

In 2011, former health minister Joe Cassar announced plans to build about 3,000 new graves but this never happened.

In November 2009, then Social Policy Minister John Dalli scrapped a series of plans to build 2,000 graves deeming them as failing to respect the cemetery’s architectural heritage.

Instead, he announced plans to add a total of 9,000 new graves in a three-year project that would have cost €33 million, which would have been raised through the sale of the graves.

The extension was to have been built on the same neo-gothic lines of the cemetery.

Scheduled as a Grade 1 architectural monument, the cemetery is in an outside development zone and was designed by Galizia, at the time chief government architect, in 1860. He also designed the Carmelite church in Balluta, Victoria Gate and the Turkish Cemetery.

The Addolorata Cemetery was officially inaugurated and blessed on May 9, 1869.

However, the first internment did not take place until January 23, 1872 and the first person buried was a beggar from Naxxar, Anna Magro, who had died at the central hospital of Floriana.