CREMATORIUM bosses in York are to impose another above-inflation price hike, only months after revealing a £700,000 surplus in their budget.

City of York Council wants to increase the cost of adult cremations from £563 to £599. If the rise is approved, the cost will have risen by more than a fifth in the past three years.

Linda Tester, manager of Older Citizens’ Advocacy York, said: “Any prices that increase are going to have a huge impact on older people, and a lot of them do not have a funeral plan set up.”

Coun Ann Reid, the council’s executive member responsible, said: “There are difficult decisions to make, and we have to balance the books.”

She said the council was continuing to waive all charges for child cremations, unlike many authorities.

“The death of a child is particularly distressing and that is one way to help people at that time.”

Coun Reid said the 6.4 per cent rise was not exceptionally high and vowed the extra income was not being used to subsidise a planned redevelopment of the crematorium.

But Don Parlabean, of the Older People’s Assembly, said: “It’s disgusting that to die, it will cost an arm and a leg. That’s a problem.”

But he said he had never heard anyone complain about the cost of cremations. “We can’t take money with us, so we may as well pay it. It’s possibly one of the easier costs to knock up, rather than taking services away,” he said.

In 2007/8, the council made £699,000 profit from the crematorium after increasing the adult fee from £495 to £536. That was increased again to £563 last February.

The latest rise, outlined in the 2009/10 budget proposals for the council’s neighbourhood services department, will generate an extra £44,000 for the authority.

Council officials acknowledge that the public impact will be “high”.

Several other crematorium charges are also increasing. Having ashes forwarded to another place will cost £35, up from £27 this year. The proposed increases were presented to councillors at a meeting last week, but there will be little debate until the budget-setting meeting next month.

Green councillor Dave Taylor was the only councillor to speak at the meeting. He said afterwards: “It’s a year-on-year increase above the rate of inflation that we are charging for cremations, and there’s not really much alternative for people.

“It’s hitting people at a very low time, when their relatives have died, and it does seem a particular mean thing to do.”

* Departments across City of York Council are having to cut thousands of pounds off their bills this year, as the authority tries to make ends meet. As reported in The Press last month, the council has to save more than £4 million a year under a Government efficiency drive across local government.