£1.8 million spend on new environmentally-friendly cremators for Broxtowe crematorium

Bramcote Crematorium. Image credit: Google.
By Lauren Monaghan, Junior Local Democracy Reporter

A Nottinghamshire bereavement service will be installing more efficient and climate-friendly cremators – which even heat the building – as part of a £1.8 million joint investment between councils.

Broxtowe Borough Council’s Bramcote Bereavement Services Joint Committee met yesterday (October 24) to discuss the service’s performance.

The committee involves partnership across county boundaries, with representatives from Derbyshire’s Erewash Borough Council attending the meeting.

Part of the service’s budget for 2024 to 2025 includes a £1.8 million investment for new cremators, equally funded by both Borough Councils.

Two cremators currently operate at Bramcote but plans after the new year will see two new efficient, climate-friendly furnesses brought in.

They will be wide-chambered to accommodate bariatric coffins – for deceased people who are obese, allowing the the facility to provide extra service.

Following the new-year break, the service will run on one cremator for around eight weeks to accommodate for the changes, swapping this at around four weeks.

Councillor Milan Radulovic, Chair of the committee, questioned if the reduced machinery was appropriate and safe for continued service.

Council officer, Richard Mott, said: “I can report that today Facultatieve Technologies [Ltd] have been on site to alleviate our concerns.

“They have done some work and we’re having an engineer on site tomorrow to do some servicing to ensure that they will see us through that period.”

As the reliance on the old cremator over this period will use more gas than the new models, Cllr James Dawson, Leader of Erewash Borough Council, asked: “Have we got capacity within the budget to cover any additional energy costs that are not foreseen?”

Mr Mott replied: “Even though we will be using the least efficient cremator, it will be working throughout the day more efficiently and it will be working every day so we won’t be preheating- the preheat is what uses the vast amount of energy.”

As part of the new works, the installation of a Plate Heat Exchange (PHE) will aid in the reduction of the crematorium’s carbon footprint.

The PHE acts as a vehicle that recovers the small portion of heat that is released to the atmosphere in the cooling process of the cremators- this heat can then be used to warm the crematorium.

This process does not use the heat required in the actual cremation process- it is only from the cooling process, meaning there is no cross contamination.

Mr Mott added: “By recycling that energy and using that to heat this building, it’s indicating that if that was related to that cremator and the cremation usage, how we are actually better than 0 in our carbon footprint, which is astonishing.”

The new cremators will be more cost efficient, having better insulation, lower maintenance costs and reduced gas usage.

They will also be cleaner and safer for the environment, with less Co2 emissions.