Purpose

The cremators are due to reach their 20 year
life expectancy in the Summer of 2026 and need to be
replaced.

Decision

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.

Reasons for the decision

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.

Alternative options considered

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and faults of the out-of-date cremator equipment as each year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.