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It was officially re-opened today, by Mayor Bradley who told the media about the new elements:

Darrell Bradley, Belize City Mayor
"We want people to feel comfortable with this facility up here. A significant amount of investment has gone on into making the place look respectable and to make people feel comfortable that their love ones are buried in a way that is dignified. The fact is for the Lord Ridge Cemetery we have just outgrown the space. The position really is that we are not accepting new burials at the Lord Ridge and that has been the position for at least a year. So that if someone wants to be buried in the Lord Ridge Cemetery they have to have already purchased a space previously or they have to use a grave space that a previously deceased loved one is buried in. So that we are doing tombs for example there so if you want to bury two people in the same grave space we have a certain amount of years that we look at. I think the previous burial had to have been above four years because we look at public health issues in terms of having to excavate and things like that so that our priority is to develop this site so that members of the public can feel comfortable using this site."

"I remember when this site was open under the previous City Council, people were reluctant to use it because of the distance from Belize City. We've put in place mechanisms including allowing our city council bus to be use free of cost. We have upgraded all the interior roads that you see here has been done within the last 3 weeks. We've built the bathroom facilities because people were complaining, you would come up here for a burial that would last an hour. Sometimes people do the full funeral here - that's 2 hours and there is no bathroom facility. There is no shade, no benches, and no trees. A significant amount of work has been done in planting trees, constructing this facility, upgrading the roads. We are also working very keenly ensuring that our records keeping is very accurate. I know that this was a problem at the Lord Ridge Cemetery in that people who were buried there for example 30 years ago, there is a difficulty in us finding those records because it was manual. Everyone who is buried in this facility together with new burials in the Lord Ridge facility, in you are using the tomb method, all of that is in a computerized system."

As you heard in our interview, the City Hall is offering free bus transportation to mourners burying their dead at Eternal Garden. They've also waived some of the fees attached to the burial expenses, for those who can't afford it. The City Council says it has spent 100 thousand dollars on these upgrades to the mile 13 facility.