7.14 Need Assessment by Horizon Cremation

Horizon Cremation Ltd Oxted Crematorium, Barrow Green Road, Oxted The Need for a Crematorium in Tandridge February 2021 This report has been reviewed and approved for submission by Peter Goatley QC Table of Contents 1 Introduction .............................................................................................................................................. 1 2 Executive Summary ................................................................................................................................ 2 3 The Demand for Cremation ..................................................................................................................... 5 4 Assessing Need - Methodology .............................................................................................................. 8 5 Quantitative Need In & Around Tandridge ............................................................................................ 19 6 Qualitative Need .................................................................................................................................... 40 7 Conclusions ........................................................................................................................................... 61 2 1 Introduction 1.1. This Need Statement has been prepared by Horizon Cremation Limited in support of a full planning application for a Crematorium on Barrow Green Road, just off the A25, Oxted Road, Oxted. 1.2. The application is for a single ceremony hall crematorium set in 4.45 hectares of surrounding landscape. The description of development is: “Construction of a Crematorium with Ceremony Hall, memorial areas, garden of remembrance and associated parking and infrastructure.” Oxted. 1.3. An application for this same proposal was submitted in March 2020. Unfortunately, the application (ref 2020/690) was refused planning permission on the 2nd October 2020 with three reasons given: inappropriate development in the Green Belt without there being very special circumstances to outweigh the harm; the development would fail to respect or reflect the character of the site and its surroundings and potential harm to the landscaping and views into the Surrey Hills AONB. There were however no technical reasons given for the refusal. 1.4. This report has been updated and revised in the light of further analysis of available information both in Tandridge and nationally. 1 | Page 2 Executive Summary 2.1 Horizon Cremation builds and operates crematoria in areas of the country where current facilities are over-stretched. The firm has submitted a planning application for a new crematorium off the A25, between Oxted and Godstone. 2.2 Cremation became particularly popular following the Second World War. We now cremate 81 percent of people in England, and the trend is increasing. With the number of deaths set to rise over the next thirty years, the demand for new crematoria will continue to rise. 2.3 In assessing the need for a crematorium in Tandridge, this document looks at both quantitative and qualitative considerations. Quantitative issues have an automatic effect on qualitative factors, so both should be assessed. 2.4 The capacity of a crematorium is calculated by multiplying the number of services per day by the number of working days. This report relies on a methodology established at numerous planning appeals and assumes that the ‘Practical Capacity’ is limited by mourners’ desires to avoid holding services at the beginning and end of the day. It also assesses the Practical Capacity in the peak month to reflect the seasonality of deaths. 2.5 We look at these measures in each of the existing crematoria in and around Tandridge including those at Croydon and Beckenham. In doing so, we also account for the impact of permitted but not yet built facilities, at Oak Tree/Bluebell and Bluebell Cemetery and of the newly opened Wealden Crematorium. The conclusions from that analysis are set out in Table 1 below. Averages 2015-2019 Summary Beckenham Croydon Kent & Randalls Surrey & Sussex Park Sussex Annual cremations 1592 1772 1553 2186 1636 Annual cremation minus directs 1559 1737 1477 2164 1626 Annual burial services 168 0 0 0 0 Total services 1759 1737 1477 2164 1626 Total Slots Available 2520 5040 3024 2520 2520 Technical Capacity 70% 34% 49% 86% 65% Total Core Slots Available 2016 3780 1764 2016 1764 Practical Capacity 87% 46% 84% 107% 92% Average Monthly core slots available 168 315 147 168 147 Average monthly services 147 145 123 180 136 Difference between peak and average 27% 28% 28% 28% 28% month (See appendix one) Calculated peak month services 187 192 157 230 174 Practical Capacity in peak month 111% 61% 107% 137% 118% Table 1 Summary of Cremation Capacity 2015-2019 assuming Wealden and Oak Tree/Bluebell/Bluebell Cemetery 2 2.6 Table 1 demonstrates that four of the five crematoria open to Tandridge residents are failing tests of quantitative capacity. The worst performer is Randall’s Park at Leatherhead, which cannot meet practical capacity tests even on an average month, let alone during the busy times of the year. Beckenham, the Kent and Sussex and Surrey and Sussex Crematorium all fail tests of practical capacity in the peak month and do so by some margin. Only Croydon Crematorium has capacity. 2.7 Evidence suggests that Tandridge residents overwhelmingly use Surrey and Sussex Crematorium. Very few of the district’s residents choose to go to Croydon Crematorium even though it has capacity. We believe this is because of the difficulty of the journey through congested roads and a complicated network and because there are cultural preferences for a crematorium that is outside London. 2.8 The capacity at the Croydon Crematorium is having little or no impact on the overtrading of the crematoria to the south, as the difficulties in these facilities have persisted for each of the five years tested with no indication of a migration of funerals from the overtrading facilities in the south to Croydon. 2.9 Alongside these quantitative failings are several qualitative problems. 2.10 A substantial population (125,900 people from a total population of 358,000 in the districts of just Reigate and Banstead, Sevenoaks and Tandridge) live more than a 30-minute drive1 from an existing or permitted crematorium. Within Tandridge Council alone, 64,500 people out of a total population of 87,500 live in an area that is more than a 30-minute drive of a an existing or permitted crematorium. This means that nearly three quarters of Tandridge residents must spend more (and often substantially more) than 30 minutes driving to a crematorium when in a funeral cortege. 2.11 Were the proposed facility at Oxted to proceed, it would bring all but 1,950 Tandridge residents within thirty minutes of a crematorium. In these circumstances, 88% of the population of Tandridge District, 77,379 people - would be within a thirty-minute drive of the Oxted site. 2.12 The proposed crematorium at Woodhatch Road, Reigate would be far less beneficial for Tandridge residents. Were it to proceed, 41,000 Tandridge residents, nearly half the population would remain more than a 30 minute drive from a crematorium. 2.13 Research on the length of time people wait for a funeral, shows that three of the facilities tested, (Kent and Sussex, Randalls Park and Surrey and Sussex Crematorium) are so overcrowded that people are having to wait unacceptable periods to secure a funeral. The average across the year for all three facilities is 25 days, significantly more than the 14 days recommended. 2.14 People are paying more than might be expected in all five of the facilities tested. Three of them, Beckenham, Randalls park and the Surrey and Sussex are operated by one company. They all charge the same price (£1,078) which is the highest price for a cremation registered in the country. Both Beckenham and Kent and Sussex Crematoria charge more than the CMA found was average in areas where populations did not have to travel more than 30-minutes to reach a crematorium. 1 30 minutes assuming the journey of a funeral cortege, at cortege speed avoiding motorways. 3 2.15 All five of the facilities are aging, (the newest is 60 years old) and each one has design features that would not be acceptable now – be it inadequate car parking, poor public transport, or prominent religious iconography. 2.16 Two of these crematoria have deep rooted and very significant issues that seem impossible to rectify – Beckenham is not fitted with equipment to abate mercury emissions and Randalls Park has a problem with flooding that has caused it to shut down for extended periods three times in the last eight years. 2.17 The need for a new crematorium in this area is compelling and urgent. 4 3 The Demand for Cremation 3.1 In 1885, Mrs Jeanette Pickersgill became the first person in the UK to be cremated in modern times. Hers was the first cremation in the newly-built Woking Crematorium. Take-up was not immediate, though. That year, three people were cremated, out of 596,000 deaths. 3.2 Cremation took time to become popular in the UK and for the first half of the twentieth century fewer than 10 percent of the population was cremated. However, the popularity of cremation rose steadily after World War Two. By 1960, a cremation followed one third of all funerals and the trend continued so that by 1980, nearly 70 percent of people were cremated. In 2019, cremations in England and Wales accounted for 81% of all funerals. Future Demand for Cremation 3.3 In the UK we are at a tipping

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