Planned upgrades to Yeovil Crematorium delayed
The majority of upgrades have been pushed back until 2024 as the new unitary council attempts to balance its books in its very first budget
Planned upgrades to Yeovil Crematorium have been pushed back by at least a year as the new unitary Somerset Council strives to save money.
South Somerset District Council is the public body responsible for Yeovil Crematorium on Bunford Lane in Yeovil, which currently averages 1,700 cremations per year.
The council has aimed for several years to upgrade the facility, which was completed in 1970, to provide more room for mourners and to enable the building to handle more services as a result.
Its district executive committee voted in February 2022 to provide an additional £800,000 towards upgrading the facility, with a further £185,400 being allocated in August the same year.
Now the majority of the upgrades have been pushed back until 2024 as the new unitary council – which officially takes charge on April 1 – attempts to balance its books in its very first budget.
The initial indication that the project was being postponed was provided by Councillor Sarah Dyke at a meeting of the council’s area east committee in Yeovil on January 11.
She said: “The new Somerset Council have reviewed the capital projects across the five existing authorities, and as a result, a number of projects have been identified which could be deferred for a year.
“This includes the Wincanton regeneration project. It also includes the Walton to Ashcott bypass, the Bridgwater library improvements, the Yeovil Crematorium chapel upgrade and phase two of providing new homes for children and adults with learning disabilities.”
The decision to push the project back was subsequently ratified by the council district executive committee on Thursday morning (February 2).
The overall budget of the crematorium upgrade was set at £5.721m in November 2022, with the costs being split between the district council (89 per cent) and Yeovil Without Parish Council (11 per cent).
Of this, around £1,269,000 has been spent to date, leaving £4,452,000 remaining at the start of the 2022/23 financial year.
The district council had originally intended to spend £1,085,000 on the project in the current financial year, followed by £3,367,000 in 2023/24 (the bulk of the upgrades) to bring the work to a conclusion.
However, following a decision by the unitary leadership, the total spend up to April 2023 will be only £70,000, with a further £385,000 being set aside for 2023/24 and £3,367,000 for 2024/25 or beyond.
Councillor Colin Rose, vice-chairman of Yeovil Without Parish Council, complained about the lack of local consultation on the project and questioned whether the unitary authority would end up abandoning the project.
He said: “If I look at the last five years, I could view it as a courtship; I could equally view it that we, due to a lack of consultation, have been jilted at the altar.
“We have incurred expenditure to enable the project to develop – architects’ fees, project management fees, the service road, the car park and so on. This places question on whether the upgrade will ever happen.
“What the population of South Somerset needs is a modern facility, a facility of dignity to say farewell to loved ones – and not a facility where, when there is a large turnout, a lot of those in attendance have to stand outside in the waiting room because they can’t get inside the existing chapel.”
Councillor Peter Gubbins said he was “very disappointed” at the deferral, and said pushing the project back beyond 2024 would be “foolhardy”.
He added: “We take quite a lot of work funerals from out of the area. This is a profit-making exercise – we shouldn’t talk about it like that, but in the end it’s a business.
“The crematorium as it stands is not fit for purpose – when I first when up there before this project start, I was appalled by what I saw up there.
“A lot of it has changed – we’ve brought new management in and there are areas we’ve worked on and improved. But I went to a funeral last year and I had to stand outside – and that’s not good enough.”
Council leader Val Keitch – who sits on the cabinet of the new unitary authority – gave assurances that she and other South Somerset councillors would push for the crematorium upgrades to be continued as soon as possible.
She said: “I can assure you that those of us who sit on what will become the unitary authority have gone into bat, to use a cricketing term, for the various projects.
“I’ve been to several services at Yeovil Crematorium; obviously, living where I do in Ilminster, we have a choice of Yeovil or Taunton, and I have to say that the majority of the people where I live, because the chapel’s so much better, actually use the Taunton one.
“I can assure you that I will be a real pain in the neck down there at County Hall to ensure that this is only re-profiled for a year and that it does go ahead, because it is badly needed.”
Somerset Council will set its first budget on February 22, before it officially replaces the county council and the four district councils on April 1.