THE cost of cremation in Redditch looks set to rise in a bid to raise income and help fund major improvements to the town’s crematorium.
These include better facilities for mourners, clergy and funeral directors as well as a canopy at the front of the building for protection from bad weather.
Members of the borough council’s Overview and Scrutiny Committee heard that in addition to plans to enlarge the catalfaque or platform to accommodate outsized coffins would require major work which is likely to damage the building’s underfloor heating system, which would need replacing.
Carl Walker, environmental services manager told councillors that although the crematorium provided a high class service it was widely regarded as ‘cheap’ with a fee of £540 compared to a national average of £646.31 and that the building, which opened in 1973, was showing its age and needed improving.
The work would also present an opportunity to use some of the waste heat from cremations, which is already used to heat the Abbey Stadium swimming pool, in the facility’s new heating system.
The committee agreed to rcommend raising cremation fees by eight per cent per annum for the next four years, which would see costs rise to £730 by 2019/20 for a cremation after 11am and to £560 for 8.30am to 9am and £630 for 9.30am to 10.15am.
In addition they recommended that £200,000 in funding be added to an existing sum of £144,000 to pay for the improvement works and that free cremations for 17-year-olds be extended to include 18-year-olds, for both residents and non-residents, to assist bereaved families who had suffered the loss of a child.
