Burial fee rise branded immoral and insensitive

Trevor Kirk, who used to run Friends of the Foulon, said the rise in burial fees was immoral. Mr Kirk is pictured next to his son’s Grave.
INCREASED burial charges at the Foulon Cemetery have been branded immoral and insensitive.
Criticism of the decision by Treasury and Resources came from many sources but was particularly strong from the former head of Friends of the Foulon.
Trevor Kirk led the group that consulted with the States on issues at the cemetery, inactive for some four years, saying the new prices were immoral.
Western parishes rector the Rev. Maurice Strike described the increases as outrageous and insensitive. They were also attacked by the island’s Vice Dean.
The cost of a plot and burial will rise from £482 to £1,400 from Thursday. The figure will be £3,700 from 1 January 2011.
‘I think the £173,000 loss on the running costs is small fry in terms of the States budget,’ said Mr Kirk.
‘I think they should have been looking at the possibilities of compulsory purchase of more land.’ (from thisisguernsey)

Its a difficult one, I think because they have little to no space left at the Foulon, and this seems the only option to force people to look elsewhere to bury their dead...

I can dig a hole for £100. Anyone got a field?

The states have made it more expensive to live, now they are making it too expensive to die,

Thats it, i'm not going to die, that will teach them. :coco:

I said ages ago that now they got their own way on 0/10 these little stealth taxes will pop up all over the place and this is just the start . They will say it has nothing to do with 0/10 but mark my words it has and there is a team of people just thinking up new ones they will creep in the back door .


Look at other countries most of there grave yards are immaculate manicured lawns not a weed in sight they have respect for the dead .
These price rises are just stupid ,is there someone sitting in an office crunching numbers saying well if 400 die in a year at £1'400 that will net £560'000 that will pay running costs easy and we have some left over..

Spot on, Digger. With the economy doing badly, we will not be hitting the 0/10 growth targets and the financial shortfall has to come from somewhere.

(Has anyone found a field yet?)

:( I totally agree with digger and the rest of this topic, I said right from the start that the only beneficiary of zero ten would be the finance industry, and that is all that Trott and his buddies in the states are interested in pleasing, the people of Guernsey will have to fund the shortfall through ever increasing stealth taxes

Never having died I'm a little ignorant of what that figure of £3,700 buys you; How long is the lease on a plot?

The cost of the land does have a value, especially on an island, the resorce is finite, so a reasonable charge can't really be complained about, and if the facility is making a loss then the reasonablness of the charge is easy to argue.

Does make me wonder why people want to bury a body once it's served its purpose in this fashion. I can't imagine feeling the desire to vist a spot to remember somebody, at a place I'd never visited with them.

Personally my remains can be disposed of in any way people want, whether that be medical research, fertilizer, burnt or hollowed out and used as a wetsuit. Those people who want to remember me can do so at a place that meant something to us... or not, what do I care.

Couple of years ago an application was refused by the Planning Dept. in Jersey by a company that owned a parcel of land on the north coast; they wanted to make a random place of rest, somewhere peoples remains could be buried, without formal plots, but where the areas natural beauty would be a memorial garden for those left behind. I liked that idea and don't see why it was refused.

Spirit wrote:...(Has anyone found a field yet?)

I hear there's a place in here that's got lots of freshly dug 'graves' with no bodies in yet. It's even in public ownership and currently without a purpose.