Weekend burials will take place at Chorley cemetery following the opening of a section for the Muslim community.

The service will be offered as it is Muslim custom to bury their dead before sundown on the day after death.

The extension to the cemetery on Southport Road is now complete at a cost of £150,000.

A meeting of the Chorley Borough Council's environment overview and scrutiny panel heard the council heard the project has been achieved under budget as the original estimate was in the region of £200,000.

In April 2004, the county council agreed to lease just over two acres of land off Southport Road to Chorley Borough Council at a nominal peppercorn rent, to be used specifically for Muslim burials.

Keith Allen, Chorley's head of public space services, said: "We will be running a standby system to provide any gravedigging requirements that will be needed at the weekend.

"We will gather all interested parties together to discuss a system for weekend burials as there is a lot of administration in a short space of time before an interment can take place."

In a presentation on the council's cemeteries service, Mr Allen also told the panel that the cost of maintaining the Chorley and Adlington cemeteries was around £115,000 per year with only £25,000 being recouped through charges for plots which currently stand at around £400 each. Those costs would also continue once the cemetery is full as the area would need to be maintained for a period of up to 200 years. The cemetery could reach capacity within the next 40 years.

Mr Allen added that the planned crematorium in Charnock Richard should be opening this year.

He added: "Once it's open I don't see much fluctuation in the number of burials which take place at the cemeteries which is currently around 160 per year."