PLANS have been announced to disinter remains at a disused graveyard in Pokesdown.

Tapper Funeral Service is due to carry out the work on behalf of a group called PLP, based in Alder Road, Poole, according to a notice published in the Daily Echo. The work will start in August at the earliest.

The notice relates to the graveyard of the former Pokesdown and Boscombe United Reformed Church, at the junction of Southbourne Road and Stourvale Road, and will see remains in the lower part of the cemetery removed and reinterred at the Woodland Burial Ground, which is managed by Tapper.

Memorials will also be moved to the new site.

The notice says that no list of names of those buried has been identified. Tapper has proposed to create a "specific memorial garden" for the remains at the Woodland Burial Ground.

Family or personal representatives of the deceased are entitled to make their own arrangements for the removal of remains and reinterment elsewhere by writing to PLP at 161 Alder Road, Poole, Dorset, BH12 4AA by July 22.

The chapel on the site - built as a home for the Pokesdown Congregational Church in 1858 - was converted into flats several years ago.

Tapper managing director Steven Tapper said: "Most of what we do is burying and cremating people but from time to time we are asked to do the opposite.

"It doesn't happen a lot in the Poole, Bournemouth and Christchurch area as there is a lot of space, but it is quite common in London.

"In the past people were not cremated so there are a lot of little cemeteries scattered around.

"One they reach a certain age they come under a different authority which will authorise the exhumation of the bodies if it is in the public interest."

He said the land was likely to be used for development.