Shropshire’s Emstrey Crematorium could be sold off
Thursday 7th October 2010, 7:34PM BST.
One of Shropshire’s biggest crematoriums could be sold off in a multi-million pound deal – because Shirehall chiefs are facing a bill of £1.5 million to replace the burners.
Shropshire Council bosses are carrying out a review of Shrewsbury’s Emstrey Crematorium, along with its chapel and gardens of remembrance, as they try to find ways of saving £60 million over the next three years due to government cuts.
The bill of up to £1.5 million is to replace ageing equipment at the crematorium in order to cut mercury emissions caused by dental fillings.
The law requires all crematoriums to be fitted with equipment to reduce emissions by 50 per cent by the end of 2012.
Andy Goldsmith, assistant director of public protection at the council, today said the authority was drawing up a new report which would be presented to councillors.
He said that although the crematorium currently makes a surplus, by offloading it the council would avoid having to shell out a huge sum to replace the cremators.
Mr Goldsmith said: “The cremators are reaching the end of their operational life and we need to replace them within the next couple of years.
“On the back of that we want to put new abatement technology to remove mercury emissions and the cost of doing that is about £1.5m.
“Before we embark on that project and spend the money we want to assess what other options there are to deliver the service and that includes either selling the crematorium or having a private sector company to run the bereavement service on our behalf.”
Council officials were due to meet with representatives from funeral directors in the area to discuss the ideas with them.
Mr Goldsmith stressed that no decisions had yet been made about the future of the site.
Mercury, which accumulates in air and water, can damage the brain, kidneys, nervous system and affect unborn children.
Crematoriums are estimated to be responsible for up to 16 per cent of all UK emissions of mercury.
By Russell Roberts
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Even our deaths are being sold for private profit now.
I wonder if there’ll be a sponsorship deal…British Gas perhaps?
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I thought that I read that £500,000 had been spent enabling the chimney to reach EU standards only a few years ago.
Now apparently they are reaching their sell by date sothe question is why was this short lived chimney work done?
Yet more of what belongs to us all will be sold off.
It all stinks and i don’t just mean the chimney.
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I bade goodbye to my late father at Emstrey and his ashes were scattered there.
The council’s proposal to flog off the crematorium is insensitive to all those thousands of families whose loved ones ended life’s journey there.
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It’s what you might call a short term gain for a long term loss in a business that is never going to be short of customers!
Typical selling off the family silver.
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“One of Shropshire’s biggest crematoriums”
- it would have to be, seeing as there are only two crematoria in Shropshire….
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privatising death
owch
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Telford crem is privately owned and beautifully run. Most people cannot see the difference in the way both operate. If the council can save money by selling it, then sell it.
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why would you sel something that is making money – daft
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[If the council can save money by selling it, then sell it.]
Sound business sense there, eh Julie.
With an ever increasing aged population and rising dramatically specifically in Shropshire then it will make a great earner, for someone. Sadly not the taxpayers who presently own it.
Meanwhile,our quick buck from the sale will no doubt glide out of sight never to be seen again, ashes to ashes dust to dust.
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surely if the site needs investment, the council (who can borrow money cheap as a guarenteed public organisation) are better placed to do that than private firms who have to borrow the money off the market?? This is the mad house economics of PFI which brown runined this country with, if something is making money you dont hand it over to the private sector you keep it in house and run it at a surplus to help subsidise all the other social services like schools and things which run at a loss
thats what a sensible council would do to balance the books anyway, they should be using this place as a model for other services to follow because i doubt there are many other council services which wash their own face so to speak, let alone make profit
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I reckon Veolia might be interested..
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The fact we had a toxic chimney right next to a college seems to have been ignored for a few decades.
It does seem odd that we have just spent a lot of dosh upgrading the filters when the possibility of flogging the place was on the cards.
I read in the Private Eye magazine that North Tyneside council have closed their crematorium (to reduce carbon emissions)are switching off street lights and collecting rubbish fortnightly.(including your relatives remains presumably!)
They even employ someone on £180,000 per annum to spread this positive information to residents! Or was that to spread lime having no crem?
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is there anyone at the council with a degree in economics? I bet you not. too much short term accounting, not long term visioning
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this will be a political hot potato
far too sensitive and issue to worry about a million pound investment
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Tre I was going to say yesterday that there will be more posts about euthanising the rabbit population.
How right I was!
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