BURIAL fees in Frodsham will not be increased this year, despite Mayor Pammi Taylor’s claim that “other local cemeteries charge much more than we do.”
The cost to residents of a burial plot and interment fee at the municipal cemetery in Tarvin road will remain at £360 and £100 respectively (double for non-residents), after town councillors Rita Shearn and Dennis Taylor argued that, following a 3% rise in 2006, a further increase now was “not warranted.”
A cemetery fees review was on the agenda of the last town council meeting, but Cllr Shearn immediately proposed no increase and members agreed to defer the issue.
They have set up a working party to establish a financial management plan for the cemetery – including building up sufficient funds to cover the cost of future expansion.
Cllr Shearn, who chairs the Amenities Committee, was concerned that the £44,000 currently held in the council’s burial ground fund would be “nowhere near enough” to purchase more land in years to come when the cemetery was full.
She said: “There has been income of £151,000 from the burial ground since it was opened in 1994 but some of that has been used to keep the precept down and we need to use that income to build up the burial ground fund.
“We have to bear in mind that we have a long-term responsibility. We have to maintain the cemetery and we will eventually have to purchase another burial ground site.”
Councillor Tony Hinkins said: “We desperately need some sort of financial management plan for the burial ground that puts that £44,000 and the current fees in context.”
