2021

CEM0127 - Lease extensions to grave owners - 071221

A member authority is looking to offer Lease extensions to their Grave owners with less than 50 years remaining.

They are wondering if other cemeteries offer these and how they go about charging.

They would therefore be interested to receive any information on the following:

1. How to you charge the grave owners?
2. Do you charge an In Borough & Out of Borough fee on the extension lease?
3. Is this determined on the new grave owner or the deceased?
4. Do you generate a new Deed for the extension?
5. Do you insist on a stonemasons report before you actually extend the lease?
6. If there are joint owners – one in and one out of Borough, who do you base your fee on?

Would be interested to hear how you set this up and if this has been a success at generating revenue for your cemetery.

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CEM0126 - Coffin sizes and cremation services - 011221

A member authority would like to ask the following questions in relation to cremations:

1. Do you ask the funeral director for coffin sizes at the time of booking the service?
2. Do you always get the coffin sizes from the funeral director, in advance of the service taking place? i.e. on your notice of cremation. If not, what impact does this have?
3. Do you often find a discrepancy between the coffin size that you actually receive, and the sizes given on the notice of cremation?
4. If so, how you manage or mitigate this? Does this impact on your workload / schedule for the Crematorium Technicians?
5. Do you ask for the weight of the coffin, and do you receive this information?

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CEM0125 - Cemetery security arrangements - 121121

A member authority would like to understand what other authorities approach is to Cemetery security arrangements. Specifically:

• Are Cemeteries still secured overnight to vehicles and/or pedestrians
• If they are secured do they use in house or third party arrangements to carry out the locking/unlocking
• If there are Cemetery lodges within the Cemeteries, do residents (whether staff or not) carry out these arrangements and if so:
• How are these arrangements formalised through employment/tenancies/licence to occupy etc.

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CEM0124 – Job Evaluation – Qualified Crematoria Technician – 281021

A member authority is enquiring whether other authorities would be prepared to share the salary that they pay to a Qualified Cremation Technician, as they are currently undertaking a job evaluation programme.

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CEM0123 – Disposal of cremated Hindu remains in running water – 200821

A member authority has received an enquiry in relation to the disposal of ashes and the Hindu faith.

They would like to ask what other authorities/ crematoriums offer for the disposal of cremated remains in running water.

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CEM0122 - Review of available burial land – 020821

A member authority is currently reviewing the amount of burial space they have left and as part of this review would be interested to learn of the position other local authorities are in.

They are looking for the following information:

• How many years of new burial capacity do you have left?
• What is the councils plan or strategy for when the land runs out? Please state as many of the following you are considering:
• No longer provide new burials in the borough
• Only provide interments into existing family graves where there is space. (closed cemetery)
• Provide interments of cremated remains
• Identify new land for burials
• Work in partnership with another Local Authority to identify new land for burials
• Look at the re-use of graves.
• Does the council have any land holding that could potentially be used for further Burial capacity?
  • If yes – approximately how many years capacity does this additional land provide
  • If No – Are you looking to purchase land explicitly for burial land / compulsory purchase.
• When your burial land is full what alternative burial land is available to your residents
  • Private Cemetery
  • Out of area cemetery (please state where) 
  • To provide a Cremation service only
• Is Cremation Service out of area if you don’t have a crematorium facility (please state the location of the crematoriums you use.)

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CEM0121 – Commemorative areas or memorial stones for COVID victims – 220621

A member authority is enquiring as to whether other local authorities if they already have some commemorative area or memorial stone for deaths from Covid, or recognising service from front line staff, or are they in the process of planning for one.

If so could they provide photographs and any useful details.

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CEM0120 – Obtaining historic grave depths – 180621

A member authority is looking for information on the issue of obtaining historic grave depths through the use of technology and to avoid the need for invasive depth test digging.

They have currently looked at Ground Penetrating Radar but the results coming back are inconclusive.

Therefore they would be keen to see what other authorities are doing regarding this issue.

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CEM0119 – Digitisation of Book of Remembrance and other memorials – 180621

A member authority is interested to gather information regarding the use of a Book of Remembrance in crematoriums and whether the trend is for these to move away from the traditional hard copy offer to a digital only offer? They are considering this approach at a new crematorium to be built and managed by the Council.

They are looking to discover the number of councils who will retain BoR on site.

They would be also be interested to know if there are any similar changes to memorialisation trends where digital approaches are replacing physical memorials.

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CEM0118 - Requests for upgrades to cemetery path networks

This member authority would like to know if any other Local Authority has received requests to upgrade their cemetery path networks retrospectively to accommodate wheelchair users, in particular:-

If this was undertaken:

1. What type of surfacing was installed?
2. What was the impact on other cemeteries (i.e. a requirement to do significantly more path upgrades after having done one for a specific user)?

If this was not completed:

1. What reasons were given to the originator of the request?
2. Does your Local Authority have a standard specification for cemetery footpaths?

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CEM0117 – Laundering of uniforms – 260521

A member authority would like to know what measures are in place across other member authorities for the laundering of uniforms in relation to grave digging and other operational service areas:

1. What financial allowance do grave diggers across other local authorities receive for laundering their clothes?
2. Do any authorities offer a laundry service to their grave diggers?
3. Do any authorities offer a financial allowance or laundry service to cover the laundering of clothes across any other service area?

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CEM0116 - Allowance for wheelchair accessibility to graves

A member authority is enquiring whether other local authorities made any allowance for wheelchair accessibility to graves.

They are currently considering whether to leave a 30” strip between bottom of grave and next row for wheelchair users in traditional cemeteries.

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CEM0115 – Agreements to receive direct cremations from Funeral Directors – 200421

A member authority is interested to know if any local authorities across the UK have set up agreements to accept direct cremations from funeral directors? They are specifically referring to agreements which take a set number of direct cremations per week / month for a set price.

They would be interested to receive any information on what the agreements looked like / how they achieved it with their authorities legal / procurement teams etc.

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CEM0114 - Types of machinery used to prepare graves – 030421

A member authority would like to know what kind of machinery other cemetery’s use in the preparation of graves.

They currently use 360 diggers and Kubota RTVs to remove the soil, but are finding that the RTVs are not really designed to carry a large load of soil every day and are concerned that it may be putting undue strain on the machine.

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CEM113 - Policies and procedures for large/heavy coffins and joint funerals – 250321

A member authority is currently reviewing their policies and procedures (including risk assessments) for various task undertaken within theirr cemeteries and crematorium.

They would be grateful if any other members would be able to assist in providing information with regards to the following:

1. Any policy and procedures including Risk Assessments, for the acceptance of large/heavy coffins for burial and cremation.
2. Any policy for the acceptance of a joint funeral for burial or cremation (two or more full sized coffins) including any variance in fees charged.

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CEM111 - Release of birds and butterflies etc. at funerals and other events – 050121

APSE has been contacted by a member authority who have had two recent incidents involving the release of animals at funeral services.

The first involved white doves which resulted in staff collecting doves from around the grounds after the service and taking them to an animal rehoming centre before they were predated.

The second involved the release of non-native butterflies in December which were immediately grounded by the temperature shock and subsequently died.

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