Cemetery’s larger fee for wider graves criticized as ‘fat tax’

By Adam Dutton

Town hall chiefs have been blasted over plans to charge grieving families a 'fat tax' to bury their overweight loved ones in XL graves.

People living in Wolverhampton could face a 20 percent price increase for larger plots to accommodate super-sized coffins.

Danescourt Cemetery in Tettenhall could charge families £2,700 for a 6ft wide burial plot - a price hike of £450 over a standard 5ft grave.

Wolverhampton is one of the fattest cities in the UK, with over two-thirds of the population classed as overweight or obese.

Wolverhampton City Council contacted 25 funeral directors about the proposed price hike and claimed they received just one objection.

Funeral director Ross Hickton, who runs Hickton Family Funeral Directors, branded the plan a "fat tax".

He fumed: “Families in Wolverhampton and in other authorities around the country pay council and income tax.

"Yes, they may have to purchase a grave initially, but to be slapped with a 20 percent payment in their time of need is horrible.

“Some may call it fat shaming. If people are growing and getting bigger, why don’t cemeteries dig bigger graves in general and slightly up the fee across the board.

“Another point to consider here is if a mum was buried in a normal-sized grave and the dad needed a bigger grave when he passed.

"The family would have to buy a bigger grave and exhume the mum to do that. A bereaved family wouldn’t want to do that.

“I completely think this is a fat tax.

"Not all authorities and private cemeteries do charge more; only one does have a separate section.

"They haven’t done any public consultation; they just asked the opinion of 15 funeral directors.

"It’s not really our opinion or our place to make comments or suggestions to cemeteries; it should come from the public.

“Fifty percent of the time we may not have their loved one in our care at the time when we issue an estimate of cost.

"We could then realise they were obese according to Wolverhampton's guidelines, we’d then have to go back to them and say there’s an additional cost.

“Authorities have to make a provision to bury their citizens; they pay in, so why should they have to pay more if they’re slightly bigger.

"You need to use common sense - if you have someone who comes in and is a bigger size, you’d bury them on the end or make the plot bigger. It’s common sense.

“It’s just another way of councils making money.”

Shocked residents also blasted the additional costs, branding it a cash-grab by the council on grieving families.

Christopher Hawkes, who works in quality assurance administration, said he didn't think Wolverhampton had an obesity problem.

The 43-year-old said, "Funerals are quite expensive as it is so this just seems like an unnecessary added cost.

"I wouldn’t have thought obesity was a problem here, you walk around in the Wolverhampton city centre and you don’t see lots of people who are fat here - is it really that big of an issue.

"Would it be more labour to dig an extra foot in the ground? I don’t think so.

"But I’ve never dug a grave. I know we need to raise more money, but I can’t imagine this is the best way of doing it.

"If you're obese at the end of your life, I imagine you’ll have some extra bills to pay anyway, so this just seems like a pointless added expense."

Rosemarie McLaren said she felt the move was "discrimination" towards obese people, branding it "not acceptable".

She said: "Someone like me who's a bit bigger is going to be charged because I'm fat."

Selena Harris, who lives in the city with her young family, is worried about how families will front the additional bill.

She said: "It doesn't seem right, especially in a deprived area."

She went on to say it was likely the council aiming to try and "recoup costs, because councils are struggling at the moment".

A report from Active Black Country revealed that 67.3 percent of adults in Wolverhampton are either overweight or obese.

Obesity rates are 33.3 percent in the city compared to a national average of 25.9 percent.

Terry Tennens, CEO of funeral directors SAIF, said: "While the 20 percent fat tax is bad enough in terms of how it discriminates against people who require a larger grave, it's the plans for a separate area for bariatric coffins that are causing the most concern.

"What this means practically is that families who have planned for loved ones - for instance mum and dad - to share a grave, might now need to face the prospect of exhuming one parent to reunite them with the surviving parent when they die.

"This is not a conversation funeral directors really want to be having with families when they are already distressed. It has the potential to cause immense upset."

He added: "Research among our members found that no more than a quarter of councils have higher fees for larger graves and 95 percent don't have separate areas for bariatric burials.

"We need to send a signal to councils that this is discriminatory and cannot become commonplace.

"We hope Wolverhampton has not set a precedent and urge others thinking of doing the same to reconsider their plans."