Highgate cemetery drops controversial maintenance building in £18m revamp plan

Grave owners at north London cemetery, where many well-known figures are buried, fear ploy' by its management

Highgate cemetery has axed plans to build a controversial maintenance and toilet block as part of an 18m revamp of the graveyard, after grave owners warned they would exhume the remains of their loved ones if the building went ahead.

Grave owners at the north London cemetery cautiously welcomed the removal of what they called a bunker" from a planning application that sparked dozens of objections, including from Jeremy Corbyn, the actors Jonathan Pryce and Bertie Carvel, and the widows of the actor Tim Pigott-Smith and the sociologist Stuart Hall.