Church of England to Offer Cut-Price Funerals Amid Burial Space Shortage Concerns

The cost of living crisis is on everyone's lips at the moment, but the Church of England seems to be addressing a much more macabre crisis with its latest move to offer cut-price funerals.

The General Synod is expected to approve plans next month which would enable bereaved families who wish to have the ashes of a loved-one interred in a churchyard to pay less than half the fee charged to those who choose the burial of a body, according to the Daily Telegraph.

If the move goes ahead, families burying ashes will be charged a fee of £120 ($198, €144) instead of £278 to have their loved one's body buried.

"They are doing the right thing, they are applying common sense and the Church usually does that," Tim Morris, chief executive of the Institute of Cemetery and Crematoria Management, told the paper.

"The Church are quite in touch and enlightened on the problems facing cemeteries and they will apply the principles accordingly with their own churchyards."

But the plan, which is yet to be approved, would require a change in ecclesiastical law.

It follows warnings that the UK is facing a severe shortage of burial spaces.

A recent BBC survey, for instance, found almost half of England's cemeteries could run out of space within the next 20 years.

A spokeswoman for the Church of England said: "This synod motion ensures that there is consistency where burial takes place in the churchyard so that the parochial church council (PCC) part of the fee for burial of a body is the same in every case, and the PCC part of the fee for burial of cremated remains is the same in every case."

In addition, the plan also comes after research from the University of Bath revealed the average cost of dying has risen by 7.1% in the past year – now standing at £7,622 (including funeral, burial/cremation, plus estate administration).