Bath’s Haycombe Cemetery and Crematorium is a very special place for generations of people who have gone there to say their goodbyes to loved ones who have passed.
However, there is less than ten years’ worth of burial space remaining at the site, and the cremators themselves are coming to the end of their working lives.
.Bath & North East Somerset Council is proposing a major programme of feasibility work to help secure the cemetery’s long-term future
The proposal, going before Councillor Manda Rigby, Cabinet Member for Communications and Community, and Councillor Sarah Warren, Cabinet Member for Sustainable Bath and North East Somerset, for a Single Member Decision, is seeking approval to redirect up to £800,000 from an existing approved cremator replacement budget to fund feasibility studies exploring options for future cremation and burial provision.
In July 2025, a Single Member Decision was approved to replace the existing 20-year-old gas cremators, which have reached the end of their operational life, requiring increasing maintenance and creating reliability risks. The approved SMD allocated a capital budget of £1.5m to replace the cremators.
The latest proposal recommends reallocating a portion of those funds to carry out a wider strategic feasibility study for the future service provision at Haycombe, which will consider both the future provision of cremation services and the long-term expansion of burial capacity.
The proposed study will look at all the options to remove the direct use of gas from the cremation process and maximise investment in an electric crematorium; explore other income opportunities such as wake facilities; and investigate the suitability of the council-owned 40-acre site adjoining to expand the cremation and burial capacity. The recommendations will be brought back to councillors for a future decision on whether to proceed.
The 35-acre Haycombe site on the edge of Bath caters for all faiths and those with no faith and is the only cremation and burial service within Bath and North East Somerset. However, the cemetery only has around eight years of burial space remaining, with some sections expected to reach capacity sooner.
Councillor Sarah Warren, Cabinet Member for Sustainable Bath and North East Somerset/Councillor Manda Rigby, Cabinet Member for Communications and Community, said: “Haycombe Cemetery and Crematorium provides the only cremation and burial service in Bath and North East Somerset which caters for all faiths and those with no faith.
“We all know it is a very special place, so it is vital we plan properly for its future. I/we welcome this report before us. It sets out how we can best prepare the future of this much-loved site which the council highly values.
“Carrying out an extensive study before making a decision on the cremators and the site is a long-term preventative approach, so can future-proof it by extending the land, reducing carbon emissions from the cremators and improving accessibility in order to secure the site for generations to come.”
If approved, the next stage will involve appointing specialist advisers and carrying out the surveys and investigations needed to develop an Outline Business Case. Public and stakeholder engagement will form part of the process.
