CREMATIONS in the city will ‘definitely be impacted’ during a major ten-month-long makeover, the council has said.

Worcester City Council admitted cremations at Astwood Crematorium would be disrupted as it plans to extend and ‘modernise’ the ageing facilities but would try to minimise disruption as much as possible.

It has not yet been revealed where services and cremations could, or would, take place during the work.

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The council’s environment committee approved plans to spend £250,000 to draw up plans for the renovation.

Lloyd Griffiths, the council’s director of operations, said cremations and services would most likely be carried out away from Astwood Cemetery during the disruption.

“There is going to be service impact,” he said at the meeting in the Guildhall on July 18. “Nobody we have talked to has done something without there being, but what we will do is we will provide a ‘mitigation’ plan.

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“That could be a mix of looking to cremate elsewhere, we will be upfront with families if we do that so there’s no hidden agenda and perhaps looking to take services elsewhere.

“There’s still a connection to us as a council but we would be utilising assets elsewhere.

“There’ll definitely be an impact, we will try to minimise that as much as possible but what we can’t have is services being held at Astwood with workers around and banging.”

The council said it carried out minor refurbishments at Astwood in 2019 and held services at the nearby Masonic Hall in Rainbow Hill during the work.

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The council’s environment committee supported the expected £6 million makeover of the city’s crematorium but future decisions on the work will be made by the policy and resources committee – with designs and the budget not expected to be revealed until next spring at the earliest.

Cllr Zoe Cookson said the environment committee was backing the work based on its ‘green’ credentials and hoped it remained the central part of the work as it progressed.

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As part of the work, Astwood Crematorium’s three ageing gas furnaces would be replaced with two new electric ones.

An extension would also be built for new accessible toilets, the chapel would be re-orientated to look out towards the garden of remembrance and a new covered entrance and shorter chimney would be built.