Funeral figures falling short

Almost 900 cremations have taken place at a new crematorium in the last year, although this was not enough to see a town council receive any financial benefit.

The £11/2m Sherwood Forest Crematorium opened on Newark Road, Boughton, two years ago.

Ollerton and Boughton Town Council originally wanted to pay for and run the crematorium, but enlisted the help of Memoria, a specialist design and building company from Oxfordshire, when the high cost emerged.

Mourners from all over Newark and Sherwood now use the crematorium instead of travelling to Grantham, Nottingham, Lincoln and Mansfield.

The town clerk, Mrs Christine Leivers, told a council meeting that when the town council sold the land to Memoria, they agreed that the council would receive a very small commission from every cremation once they had carried out more than 1,000 during a year.

She said in 2007 a total of 867 had been carried out, meaning the council received no commission.

Mrs Leivers said there was no review period for this number but it was considered 1,000 could be reached once the crematorium was established, probably within five years.

Councillors said they were still very pleased with the usage of the crematorium, which was not built to make money for the council.

Mr Ray Shilling said: “This underlines how right we were to provide this type of facility in this area.

“If we are already producing these sorts of figures then it is being well used, and was needed.

“I have received nothing but good comments about the service provided there.

“It benefits a lot of people in the Ollerton and Boughton area.

“When families of the deceased are having a difficult time, they no longer have to go on a long journey.”

The leader of the council, Mr Ben Wells, said: “There were issues at the time, and remarks were made about it not being used by people from the Newark side of the district. We are seeing a number of cremations of people from that area.”

The crematorium was one of the first in the country to have state of the art mercury abatement and smoke filtration equipment so it does not release any smoke into the atmosphere.

The equipment captures mercury gas produced by the cremation of people with dental fillings, many of which contained the potentially poisonous metal.

A music system allows organ music or songs requested by the deceased to be played into the 75-capacity chapel and a waiting area.

The crematorium also has a memorial garden. It has an open bible sculpted in granite that has small squares carved into the pages so families can leave small dedications to their loved ones.