Decision details

The Cabinet Member agrees to approve a capital budget allocation of £1.5m for the replacement of the two cremators and all associated equipment and works and delegate to Director of Place Management the power to appoint contractors and all other matters relating to project delivery and implementation.

A Feasibility Study in 2024 recommended the cremators should be replaced at

or before they are 20 years old which would also have the following benefits:

• Replacing the existing 1x small and 1 x large cremator with 2 new Bariatric

Cremators which are larger in size to future proof the service against the

increasing size of the average person within the population which in turn will

increase the capacity of the service and potentially increase income

• New technology cremators will enable a reduction in gas consumption.

While the crematorium can never be fully carbon neutral, the reduction in

energy consumption will further support the council’s climate emergency

objectives and reduce utilities costs to the service.

• Include partial replacement of the current emissions abatement equipment to

install the latest technology which will further reduce emissions. While

emissions from crematoria are closely regulated, updating the abatement

equipment will ensure that when regulations are updated and tightened,

Haycombe will continue to remain compliant.

• Upgrade the charging trolley used by staff to load the cremators to a semi[1]automatic or fully automatic charging trolley system to reduce physical

burden on staff for health and safety reasons & improve the overall efficiency

of operation.

1. Do Nothing - Increased risk of breakdowns and faults of the out-of-date cremator equipment as each year elapses putting financial pressure on the corporate maintenance budget and possibly reputational damage if services have to be cancelled and capacity decreases. There has never been a maintenance contract with the current cremators so the existing maintenance budget of £98k p.a. is existing spend on maintenance where each instance of breakdown or callout is billed individually. This will only increase year on year now that the cremators are 20 years old.

2. Replace the smaller cremator with a larger cremator - Maintenance costs for the remaining large cremator will continue to rise each year. Costs for installing 1 cremator will be exponentially higher than for doing both at the same time i.e. will still have to do the electrical upgrade work and inevitably the old cremator will require replacing eventually anyway. There will be issues with incompatibility running 2 different types of cremators on different technologies at the same time with the additional ancillary equipment that will be required for the new ones

3. Replace both cremators - This ensures service disruption is kept to a minimum; installation is efficient by replacing all the infrastructure and ancillary equipment at the same time and increasing the reliability and capacity of the equipment and the service with new technology and infrastructure. Also enables full realisation of emissions reductions and utilities costs thereby future proofing the service against energy price rises and future legislation to further reduce emissions.