Sleeping with the fishes may not be as sinister as it sounds if a Gold Coast plan for an underwater graveyard gets the green light.

The city council will consider the proposal as a way to address a shortage of burial plots in Australia’s sixth largest city.

It could allow for cremated remains to be interred inside structures under the waves or mixed in concrete to create new sections.

In 2007, a site off the coast of Miami in the United States called Neptune Memorial Reef was created and has a capacity to hold 125,000 remains.

It’s expected the idea will be put to the Gold Coast City Council’s lifestyle and community committee later this year.

Long-serving councillor Dawn Crichlow is backing the plan and wants to see an underwater graveyard constructed at the Broadwater off the Southport coast.

Earlier this month Gold Coast mayor Tom Tate announced plans to create a dive site by sinking a multi-million dollar pyramid off the Spit.

Cr Tate said while the graveyard plan had merit he felt the Spit would be a better location than the Broadwater.

“It’s the ultimate ‘green burial’ in my view,” he told the Gold Coast Bulletin.

By Ed Jackson