I NOTE that the Central Durham Crematorium Joint Committee has increased the cremation charge for adults in 2014 by 15 per cent to £630, well above inflation, which is dropping. This follows an 11.63 per cent increase in the previous year.

I also note that both proposed increases were advised to the committee partly by a process known as “bench-marking”, possibly also known as a “cartel”, or a “price-fixing ring”.

I also note that, as far as can be checked, both increases were accepted by the crematorium committee seemingly without a single demurring voice; no opposing votes, nothing!

As part of its ongoing oversight and management remit, the committee should be congratulated for overseeing the necessarily expensive modernisation, replacement and mercury upgrade of the cremator units, while fortunately rejecting the seriously-silly and hugelyexpensive proposals for providing a heated, skid-free, approach road and parking areas for all those speeding hearses. There were also proposals to generate electricity and provide central heating from the cremation furnaces’ waste heat, but these too were rejected.

As the crematorium’s net profit was reported last year as being more than £300,000, which works out at about £128 per cremation, I wonder if Durham County Council would request from the crematorium committee a review of these exorbitant rises in cremation charges.

The charges should reflect a more proportionate approach to the price of dying, while ensuring that the crematorium’s costs, inclusive of any loan repayments, are covered, and also allowing for a more modest surplus for investment into the future.

Or would the council, through Hear All Sides, defend both these rises in charges against any comment that it is running the crematoria literally as profit centres, and coining it in from the dead and from those who pay, as well as grieve, for their departed relatives and friends?

Mike Cunningham, Durham City.