PLANS have been drawn up to reorganise a woodland burial site in order to respond to the "rapidly evolving" situation of the Covid pandemic.

Proposals have been sent to the council for the GreenAcres Woodland Burial site on Blindfoot Road, Rainford.

Greenacres provide both burial and cremation funeral services for the local community and have been operating at Rainford since 2014.

The plans include for the reorganisation of burial site facilities to provide a new, single storey reception and administration modular building.

The site is also looking to create an infil extension and associated alterations to the existing ceremony hall building; six additional car parking spaces and an area of traditional burial plots.

GreenAcres would like to utilise a small area (0.83Ha) within the southern boundary of the site in order to provide some traditional burial plots.

READ > Council proposes earmarking £3.6m for Gamble Building regeneration

A planning statement in the application said: "Prior to the current COVID-19 measures that restrict the number of people who can attend funeral services, the Rainford Site experienced many occasions where the number of mourners could not be fully accommodated within the existing ceremony hall building.

"This led to mourners having to stand outside the existing ceremony hall building during memorial services".

It added: "The proposals within this application are to provide additional space within the Ceremony Hall by relocating reception and administrative facilities to a single storey, modular building elsewhere on the Rainford site.

"The need for this re-organisation of site facilities is made more urgent by the coronavirus crisis. GreenAcres is facing considerable challenges in managing a significant increase in the number and frequency of smaller services whilst providing sufficient space for social distancing in order to protect staff and the bereaved.

"Therefore, the proposals put forward in this application are essential for GreenAcres to be in a position to; accommodate current demand; protect its staff, facilitate social distancing requirements; and to respond to this rapidly evolving pandemic all of which has added an extra dimension to the discussions we have had to date with St Helens Council, as part of the pre-application process".

The planning application is on standard consultation with the public until Wednesday, March 10 with a determination deadline set for April 14.