ONE of the country's first private cemeteries could be built in the grounds of a 700-year-old North-East deanery.

Tyre dealer Jim Greenwood wants to create an elaborate Greek-style burial ground - complete with marble and granite vaults and family tombs - on grazing land next to his Grade I listed home East Deanery, on the edge of Bishop Auckland, County Durham.

Mr Greenwood has applied to Wear Valley District Council for permission to build what he says would be one of the finest burial grounds in the country.

But his scheme has fallen foul of his neighbours in South Church, who are still recovering from the effects of devastating flooding at the beginning of June.

Mr Greenwood said last night: "It would be very low profile, but select and intimate."

But people living in nearby St Chad's Close have organised a petition and enlisted the support of their local councillors.

Judith Galley's home already overlooks another graveyard, and if the conversion goes ahead, she says she will have a view of a cemetery from every window.

"We've had enough trauma and pain in the village without looking at people being buried," she said.

"If we get another flood, we'll be scraping up bones, God forbid."

Her neighbour, Honor Johnson, said: "We're as sick as pigs. We've had enough to cope with, with the floods. We don't want to sit and watch people being buried."

Mr Greenwood could have hit on a money-spinning idea, according to the Confederation of Burial Authorities, a non-profit making advisory group in Richmond, Surrey.

Relatives are willing to pay as much as £6,000 for their choice of grave, said chief executive Bob Coates.

"As graveyards run out of space, and people have more disposable income, we are following the Americans and moving towards private cemeteries," he said.