Stop This Scandal. Save Our Graves!
ER GWYBODAETH YN UNIG - FOR INFORMATION ONLY
DATGANIAD - PRESS RELEASE
Friends of Bethel Sketty Cemetery, Swansea
Press Release for Immediate Release
Friday 3 February 2023
Stop This Scandal - Save Our Graves!
The Charity Commission is facing calls from an influential UK pressure group to intervene and halt the sale of a Swansea chapel and historic cemetery until its owners can answer claims that they are breaking the law, presiding over a scandal, and ignoring their obligations as a registered charity.
The National Federation of Cemetery Friends, which has 10,000 members across the UK, has lodged a formal complaint with the Charity Commission, which regulates how charities must operate. It accuses the Trustees of the independent Bethel Chapel in Carnglas Road, Sketty, Swansea, which is currently closed, of trying to sell off the chapel (a listed building) together with a three-bedroom caretaker’s house and a large cemetery containing thousands of graves, in a fire sale without ensuring the necessary measures are in place to safeguard the future of the cemetery and the rights of grave owners there.
Relatives and loved ones of many of the dead have formed an action group - Friends of Bethel Sketty Cemetery. They have a Facebook group and more than 300 members and are seeking to ensure the cemetery will remain open and well-maintained if it is sold, but the chapel Trustees have repeatedly refused to meet or talk to the relatives to discuss their concerns since the property was put up for sale last summer for £400,000. The community was alarmed to see the Swansea estate agent handling the sale, Rees Richards, describe the property as a “Redevelopment Opportunity.”
In a hard-hitting complaint to the Charity Commission, The Federation accuses the chapel Trustees of not being transparent in how they are going about the sale of a very valuable asset and calls for urgent intervention now so that the community does not lose the charity’s burial ground. Noting that the Commission has already received a welter of individual complaints about what seems to many the Trustees’ reckless action without any sign of improvement, its formal complaint concludes:
“A scandal is brewing over the Trustees’ poor handling of this sale, which threatens to deny a community access to its long-standing burial ground and which risks bringing the whole charity sector into disrepute.”
The respected pressure group also accuses the Trustees of “seeking to hide or mask the charity’s true charitable purposes and obligations towards the burial ground and grave owners so as to sell off the property on dubious grounds with no safeguards in place” and of ignoring their financial obligations to grave owners and the local community in Sketty, Swansea.
The complaint describes the burial ground - dating from the 1840s and thought to contain the remains of up to 11,000 souls
- as “a treasured asset dear to the heart of the community in Sketty, Swansea. On no account should the current chapel Trustees be allowed to dump their sacred responsibilities and asset-strip the heart of the chapel’s historic source of income and land value, which was the cemetery.”
The Bethel Trustees and the chapel’s Minister, Jill-Hailey Harries, have said very little publicly except that the chapel is no longer viable with an ageing and declining Welsh-speaking congregation of around 65 people, though this makes it one of the larger independent chapels in the Swansea area. They have closed the listed chapel building, saying it is structurally unsafe, and the congregation now have to attend services elsewhere. The Trustees are in advanced negotiations with a potential buyer but the fate of the cemetery remains a major uncertainty. In its complaint to the Charity Commission, The National Federation of Cemetery Friends also questions why funds earmarked specifically for the maintenance of some graves at Bethel appear to have disappeared from the chapel’s accounts. And the Federation highlights concerns expressed by the Friends of Bethel Sketty Cemetery in recent months at the relatively modest asking price for the listed chapel, a modern annexe, three-bedroom detached caretaker’s house and the 4-acre cemetery of £400,000. The Federation suggests the whole site “appears to be greatly undervalued”.
And in its strongest condemnation of the stewardship of the current Trustees, led by former Plaid Cymru Assembly Member Dr Dai Lloyd, The Federation concludes that the Trustees are presiding over “what seems to be a fire sale to rid themselves of their responsibilities and liabilities” and it calls for the Trustees to leave “a large financial dowry” to safeguard the future of the cemetery if it is sold.
The National Federation’s complaint says there is no evidence that the Trustees have changed their ways after receiving previous advice and guidance from the Charity Commission: “We think that the issues noted here require the Commission to intervene urgently to obtain a change of heart,” it says.
Appealing for the Charity Commission to call a temporary halt to the sale, The Federation stresses that the situation is urgent since contracts could be exchanged soon with the potential buyer. Until recently the Trustees included Professor Prys T J Morgan, brother of the late First Minister of Wales, Rhodri Morgan, and The Federation’s verdict on the role of the Trustees is scathing:
“They seem unable to talk to their community. We suggest that their make-up should change so that they can engage effectively and transparently with their community and stakeholders. That means replacing and/or recruiting new trustees and members from the wider community, especially from the Friends of Bethel Sketty Cemetery who have proved themselves willing and motivated to consider the long-term future of the burial ground.”
The Federation’s coruscating report and complaint have remained confidential until now, but it has made these available to the Friends of Bethel due to the lack of response from the Charity Commission to date and the urgency of the need for intervention to stop the sale.
The Vice Chair of The Federation, Colin Fenn, has taken a keen interest in the campaign by The Friends of Bethel to safeguard the cemetery -- last resting place of a Rorke’s Drift veteran immortalised in the film Zulu, and a celebrated Welsh missionary to China as well as containing numerous Commonwealth War Graves. He commented: “I fear there is the potential for this major Swansea burial ground to become derelict, abandoned, unloved -- a magnet for anti-social behaviour, and we are very concerned at what seem to be the increasingly-worrying manoeuvrings of the Bethel Chapel Trustees, which suggest they may want to flog off the whole site as a job lot and take the substantial proceeds to be spent elsewhere. The most upsetting thing is that a cemetery and a chapel were set up around this site and some 11,000 people have been buried here over the years yet now the Trustees think they can wash their hands of it, asset strip it, walk away and not give a thought to the obligations they leave behind. It was a Welsh-speaking chapel and congregation but it is a scandal in any language!”
The Secretary of the Friends of Bethel Sketty Cemetery, Fiona Nixon, added:
"I have regular contact with many of our 300 members and speak to people who, like me, have generations of their family buried at Bethel. I have heard heart-wrenching stories from members who are extremely distressed by the sale. The Bethel Trustees seem to think it is none of our business that they apparently wish to sell up and take the charity’s very substantial assets with them elsewhere, ignoring their responsibility to safeguard the future of this historic cemetery. It amazes me that these “leaders” seem to demonstrate no Christian values of sympathy, courtesy, humility, understanding, compassion or love for the relatives of the many thousands buried at Bethel and our justifiable fears for the future. We must be heard and I will continue to fight this not just for me and my family but for all our members with loved ones buried in Bethel and also for those new members joining us all the time as news spreads of this scandal."
And The Friends’ Treasurer, Geoffrey Evans, commented:
“I don’t think the Trustees have any idea or even care how much hurt there is among the relatives of those who have loved ones buried in the cemetery at Bethel, myself included. It is absolutely appalling that they have chosen to ignore all our very reasonable requests to engage or speak with representatives of the relatives to date. The lack of knowing anything about the fate of the Bethel cemetery if a sale goes ahead is extremely upsetting for those who care the most. The Trustees should all be ashamed of themselves for treating concerned relatives with complete contempt! It's time the Charity Commission intervened to stop this outrageous behaviour.”
