Take a virtual walk through proposed £9million Derbyshire crematorium

A video gives a glimpse of proposals for the new Shirebrook facility, which has been earmarked for land next to Shirebrook cemetery, and is available to view as part of a public consultation on the plans.

Specialist crematorium designers CDS Group showed the video to members of Bolsover District Council in a meeting today (April 6) as part of a presentation of their ideas for the site.

Director Justin Smith said: “Something that CDS are particularly impassioned about is the green agenda and there are about 600 cremators in the UK, about 400 crematoriums and about 600 cremators, only three per cent of those are currently what we would call ‘green cremation’, in other words the don’t produce any carbon.”

He explained that the average crematorium that processes a thousand cremations a year using natural gas will produce around 150 tonnes of CO2 a year, equating to 1.2million carbon car kilometres every year if you are using natural gas as the fuel source.

In order to combat this, Mr Smith proposed the use of electricity instead.

He added: “The beauty about electric cremation is that you would be operating on the green energy tariffs, the green electricity, and that means that the fuel source is effectively carbon zero.”

Planner Ben Copeland explained that after being approached by the council regarding the feasibility of a new crematorium in the area, the CDS Group undertook a 30-minute drive time assessment to understand the population of the area and the number of people currently outside the catchment of an existing crematorium.

He said: “For this development, it’s 33,221 people were in that unserved catchment, which equals 290 cremations based on a regional death rate and a national cremation rate.

“The next assessment was the minimum drive time catchment, which is all of the population which was closest to the proposed site and this totals 70,422 people, which is 614 cremations in total.”

Lead architect Lucio Foglia explained the main building has been designed to be sympathetic to the surrounding area, using red brick, local stone and a steel roof.

Proposals include a tranquillity courtyard with veranda, welcome area, service hall with seats for up to 120 people, cremation hall, lobby of light, flower court and cafe, which can be hired for wakes.

The layout has been designed to allow people to move in a circular route around the site without meeting other groups of mourners.

Landscape designer Anne Jennings said an avenue of lime trees has been incorporated into the external designs, as well as whitebeam, pear and birch trees.

She explained that the crematorium site was very large, and proposed a proportion of it be used as a parkland, encouraging biodiversity.

Following the presentation, the council’s executive director Grant Galloway explained the district council looked into creating a new crematorium with Shirebrook Town Council after hearing from members of the public that it took a long time for them to reach the existing crematoriums in neighbouring areas.

The CDS Group is working towards a timescale of submitting the plans in June this year, with the aim of having them approved by September.

Construction would then begin in March 2023 and the facility would open in April 2024.

A public consultation event will take place at Shirebrook Leisure Centre tomorrow (April 7) between noon and 4pm, after that the plans will be available to view for two weeks afterwards.

To take part in the online consultation, visit bolsover.gov.uk