A SURGE in the number of people who have died in Barnsley in recent weeks has forced the town’s crematorium to open on Saturdays to cope with demand.
Some families are facing waits of up three or four weeks for their loved ones to be cremated according to undertakers, prompting them to ask the council to open the crematorium in Ardsley on a Saturday to ease the backlog.
The crematorium, which usually only opens on weekdays, opened last Saturday and is open again today and next weekend.
A spokeswoman for Barnsley Council said it is not unusual for the crematorium to open on a Saturday to cope with extra demand. She said it is also offering extra time slots during the week, in the morning and afternoon, so people don't have to wait a long time for a funeral.
The council spokeswoman said: “It’s done on a week-by-week basis when the demand is there.
“It will be open this Saturday and the Saturday afterwards and we’ll take the decision to open on further Saturdays on a rolling demand.”
Beverley Hadfield of A and N Hadfield Funeral Directors, Burton Road, Monk Bretton said there had been an unusually high number of deaths this year.
She added: “Ourselves and another undertakers spoke to the crematorium to ask about putting on Saturday cremations simply because at the beginning of February we were already taking bookings up to February 28 and we asked the crematorium if they would be willing to put Saturday times on.”
She said the crematorium is doing what it can in order to cope with the ‘unprecedented’ number of deaths and that hopefully things should begin to settle down.
She said: “We’re already booking into the first week in March now and that’s with the extra Saturday times.
“Everyone is pulling together and trying to help the situation.
“It’s quite bad for families. We have been in that situation ourselves as family, and it is not nice and a fortnight wait is a long time but some are looking at three and even four weeks’ wait. It’s a long time.
“It’s been unprecedented demand.
“It’s very busy in Barnsley at the moment with regards to deaths. It’s an exceptional year and seemed to come without warning.
“It’s always busy after Christmas because of the holidays and bank holidays and that has a knock-on effect every Christmas but it’s quite bad this year.”
Funeral director Simon Anderson, of Anderson’s Funeral Services, said the backlog’s momentum doesn’t seem to be stopping.
“We are now booking people up to March 3 just to get them in, and I’m sure there will be other directors booking even further in advance,” said Simon.
“At this time of year if someone passed at a weekend then you would look to book them in Thursday or Friday that week, or Monday or Tuesday the week after. But currently we are looking at weeks in advance.
“It is like firefighting, we don’t seem to be able to tackle the backlog and it is the poor families which are suffering and having to wait.
“The trouble is we are now going into Easter time and haven’t fully got rid of Christmas yet.
“We are all working six days a week at the moment. There really is nothing more we could do. You can suggest travelling further to Hull or Grimsby but then people have to travel and they understandably want to stick local for friends.
“There are some times available like 9.30am and 4.30pm which people are looking at out of desperation but these can clash with things like school runs.
“The council is helping as much as it can and the crematorium staff are working overtime on evenings to deal with it all.”
Funeral arranger Tara Taylor, of Dyson’s Funeral Services in Penistone, said: “Most people in our area use Grenoside, which accounts for about 80 per cent of our services. So it hasn’t affected us as much but it is a good thing if they are opening Saturdays to make up for it.”
