Town burial costs to go up by 67%
The price of burials at a town's cemetery will more than double, it has been revealed.
People wishing to bury loved ones at Market Drayton Cemetery will have to pay £1,155 from April 1 – a 67 per cent rise from the current £691 charge.
The price hike at the Cemetery Road site was agreed at an extraordinary meeting of Market Drayton Town Council's services and facilities committee. But Councillor Roger Hughes, the committee's chairman, insisted the town was still one of the cheapest places to be buried in Shropshire.
Councillor Hughes said: "The cemetery costs us around £25,000 a year. There are also additional costs including things like wages and fuel which come to another £21,000.
"So altogether the cemetery costs around £50,000. This is without admin fees which cost even more. We have been getting an income of around £30,000 so there is a significant gap we need to address.
"These increases are still very much reasonably compared to other places and towns.
"I think we should run with these increases now and review it annually.
"We have fallen behind in the last 10 years. We are currently plugging a £40,000 gap and hoping these increases will reduce this.
"We are still going to be one of the cheapest in the area. In fact we will be the third cheapest in the area.
"With the current financial situation we are in we have to save money where we can.
"Bearing in mind at the moment we currently charge an admin fee of £140 that we are proposing to scrap."
Councillor Lee Ridgway disagreed that the admin fee should be dropped.
He said: "We would still have a shortfall to fund. I do not think we should drop the admin fee."
Originally councillors proposed to increase burial fees (including purchasing of grave space and internment in a double grave) to £1,050 but councillors still thought this figure was not high enough to cover costs so voted to increase it by another 10 per cent.
Burial fees in Newport are £732, £1,061 in Bridgnorth, £1,150 in Oswestry and £1,685 in Telford, councillors were told.
All councillors on the committee voted in favour of the increases.
