A sustainable future: Royal Assent for the General Cemetery Act!
We are pleased to report that we have now completed the parliamentary process and our private Bill has received Royal Assent and become an Act (the General Cemetery Act), effectively passing into law.
Members of the General Cemetery Company team, advisors and interested stakeholders attended a House of Commons Unopposed Bill Committee meeting on Monday 13th October 2025 that was chaired by Ms Nusrat Ghani, Conservative MP for Sussex Weald. The committee of several MPs and junior Ministers asked various questions of the team and resolved on the day to approve the draft Bill allowing it to pass to the next stage.
Following the Unopposed Bill Committee meeting the Bill went back to the House of Commons for its third and final reading which took place at the start of proceedings on Thursday 16th October 2025. The Speaker of the House opened the Commons session for the day, before making the third reading which then passed with no objections. The next and final step was for the Bill to pass across to the King for Royal Assent which happened on Monday 27th October 2025.
The Directors of the GCC would like to pay special thanks to Nicholas Evans from TLT Solicitors who acted as our Parliamentary Agent and shepherded us through the process, heritage consultants Ross Ingham and Kate Pinnock, of Ingham Pinnock Associates, whose guidance has been invaluable to helping us find a secure and sustainable future for the cemetery, and to the Cemetery Manager Kelly Farrington for her detailed contributions to the two parliamentary committee meetings.
The next steps in the journey now are to set up the charity to which the site will be transferred and a Steering Group is in place to lead on this with three new recruits from outside of the cemetery and crematorium sector. We then expect to submit an application to the charity commission later this year and for the charity to be established in 2026. The transfer of the site will be then subject to the agreement of the GCC’s shareholders.
November 2025.
HS2
HS2 are continuing with preparations for tunnelling from Old Oak Common through to Euston Station.
Tunnelling underneath Kensal Green Cemetery is currently scheduled between February and April 2026.
Above ground in the cemetery, HS2 have set up monitoring points to check levels of vibration during tunnelling, and have also put in protective measures for historic monuments, which could possibly be at risk from vibration during tunnelling.
The work on listed monuments has Listed Building Consent from Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea (RBKC). A few select monuments are being dismantled, put into storage and will be re-erected once tunnelling under the cemetery is complete. This work is underway between now and the end of December 2025.