I went on a long walk over the weekend and took in the sites of Camberwell Old Cemetery and Camberwell New Cemetery.

For those that get confused the Old Cemetery is the one bordered by Underhill Road, Wood Vale and Forest Hill Road. The New Cemetery is next to Honor Oak Park train station and between the railway line and Brenchley Gardens.

The last time I was in the Old Cemetery was a few years ago and I saw a Green Woodpecker having a go at an ant hill on an old grave. Sadly the wreckers have been in since then and the place looks very different. Gone is the look of a slightly overgrown garden with lots of mature trees and shrubs. Now we have a new tarmac path that looks like a road, grass so closely mown it would give an ant a haircut and lots of the trees and shrubs that were there cleared away.

I only saw a couple of people visiting a grave, most of those there were walkers or families with children or dogs. What was particularly strange was the vast increase in plastic flowers since my last visit. Why do they do people do that? Is it because they only visit once a year and want them to last? They really are quite horrid and combined with the diverse range of grave stones combine to make the place look quite grotesque.

There is one part of the cemetery which is still much as it was. The northern section which runs to the back of the houses on Ryedale and part of Underhill. This is pretty much unchanged from before and presumably one of the areas the campaign is trying to save. Portable metal fences have been put up in preparation for Southwark's logging camp.

Visually this section is also pretty depressing with the graves overgrown but at least you can see that it must be where a lot of our local wildlife lives. Indeed it looks very much like parts of Nunhead Cemetery. If it was down to me I would remove the gravestones and leave the trees and wildlife. I saw only one grave in this section that had evidence of a visit by relative so clearly no-one cares about who is buried there.

Our circular walk ends at the entrance on Forest Hill Road where we see four or five shining examples of how Southwark Council continues to waste money. Either side of the entrance they have planted 15ft Italian Cypresses. Expensive items, I would guess about £300 each. But why both to stake them properly when you have money to burn? So they are all lopsided and falling over. Why choose these non-native trees in the first place? Why not a five foot oak or walnut at a fraction of the price. Cuts to local government? They can't come quickly enough if they are so wasteful with the money they do have.

So on to Camberwell New Cemetery. S******* over by Southwark ten years ago when they took the nursery site for burials they have come back to finish the job. Inevitably the new section of the cemetery is filling up rapidly which only goes to prove the futility of trying to provide burial space in an urban environment. A lesson learnt by the Victorians over 150 years ago when they set up places like Brookwood Cemetery. A lesson apparently lost on those running Southwark.

I wasn't quite sure which bits of the New Cemetery Southwark wants to trash but I assume that is the forested edge near to the One Tree Hill nature reserve. At this rate our urban nature reserves will end up as small islands of loneliness separated by dead urban space.

All in all my walk made be quite angry. I would try and talk to my local councillors about my concerns but given they, like the people running Southwark and taking these ridiculous decisions, are all from the Labour party what is the point?