Developing an award winning service

Closed Churchyards

Closed churchyards offer their own special challenges. Many are either listed and/or in conservation areas. This provides a recipe for very expensive work. To attempt to pre-empt this we have introduced a maintenance inspection and repair programme to prevent deterioration and reduce costs. This programme rates work according to cost and/or health and safety risk and is programmed in short, medium or long term accordingly and reviewed annually. There is also in place rolling capital funding for major issues. We were also able to identify that our in house carpentry workshop had the skills and experience necessary to produce items of a standard suitable for listed building consent. As a result a set of replacement gates for a church quoted at over £10,000 by the church were manufactured and installed for approximately one third of that cost.

Other Means of Supporting Bereaved Families

We offer cremations free for under 18s. The extended space also allowed us to develop our children’s section. A 6 chamber children’s vault, also designed in house, has been installed within the children’s section and is free of charge if required.

The cemetery extension allowed space for a mausoleum to be constructed. We had been approached by our local Italian community about mausolea provision but at the time no funding was available. Following consultation with the community it was agreed that if we could provide a satisfactory design at an acceptable price, construction would be funded by the reservation deposits. A design was produced in house, agreed and costed. The scheme waspresented to the community and sufficient funding has been raised so far to construct four mausolea with a total of 69 spaces. A further fee is charged at time of internments.

In April 2017 we introduced our pre paid cremation scheme. The intention of this scheme was to allow preplanning of funerals to take place at known costs. In theory we expected it to open up a considerably larger market within the general public. But, in the first year we found that it was beneficial to independent funeral directors. Their pre paid funeral schemes do not include cremation costs so our scheme allowed them to offer the full package and in the first year we sold 70. From our perspective if these people were able to plan their funerals in advance either directly with us or through their funeral director, then this was a positive step forward and hopefully removed pressure on a bereaved family at a later date and potentially public health funeral costs

The Authority has a number of rose gardens with memorial tags (some in perpetuity). Roses now struggle to thrive in these gardens without significant maintenance and attention so where possible roses are removed at the end of the lease period. We return the tag to the leaseholder and provide replacements for any missing tags. We are moving to garden memorials with the Authority managing the planting around them.

Rebrand and wedding service

Following on from all of the extension work, it was felt that the service would benefit from a rebranding exercise and so in 2018 we changed from Kettering Crematorium to Warren Hill. The changes included new signage, website, correspondence, etc.

The changes also allowed us to review the services we could offer. As a result, the Edgar Newman Room and garden at Warren Hill are now licensed for weddings. For the payment of £1500 (in Northamptonshire) you can get a wedding premises licence for 3 years.

In our opinion all of the facilities required were already on site so there did not need to be any additional costs – quality room with sound system (with a re-orientation of the seating), free car parking, picturesque gardens for photographs - and the County registrar agreed with this view. We did spend some money on the garden but any works were as beneficial to the bereaved as to weddings.

There is no impact on funerals as it is weekends only and we consulted with our funeral directors to confirm this before going ahead. Cost of the licence is all that needs to be covered with staffing costs only being incurred when there is a wedding; meaning it is paid for from wedding income. Hopefully any income from the wedding service will support other bereavement services income; thereby relieving some pressure from the challenges identified in the introduction.

That’s where we are to date. We continue to look for improvements and additions to what we offer which compliment the services we provide and support the bereaved at a difficult time both personally and financially.

• To learn more about the latest innovations in cemeteries and crematoria, please contact APSE Principal Advisor Wayne Priestley on [email protected] or call 0161 772 1810.

< Page 2 of 2