Outrage as council imposes 'fat tax' at cemetery for wider burial plots
A council has imposed a 'fat tax' for wider burial plots at one of its cemeteries.
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The council cemetery will charge £2700 for a 6ft wide burial plot - a 20% increase from the standard 5ft grave.
Funeral director Ross Hickton said the price hike was "not really acceptable or fair" and labelled it a "fat tax".
Danescourt cemetery in Tettenhall, Wolverhampton, is not alone in this surcharge as local authorities in Telford, Birmingham, Walsall, Coventry and Staffordshire charge extra for wider coffins.
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This comes as at least a third of adults are obese in a widening amount of areas - and the Midlands and the north-east of England are the worst affected.
Local resident Rosemarie McLaren told the BBC she felt the move was "discrimination, it's not acceptable".
"Someone like me who's a bit bigger, is going to be charged [more] because I'm fat," she said.
Mr Hickton, from Hickton Family Funeral Directors, an independent company with seven branches across the West Midlands, said: "You know people have paid into the system their entire life, paid their council tax to Wolverhampton Council, and for them to be told [the grave is] 20% more because of the size of their loved one, it's not really acceptable or fair."
However, Matthew Crawley, chief executive at the Institute of Cemetery and Crematorium Management, agreed with the charge.
"You have a finite amount of space to work with; therefore if you need to eat into a grave next door, say, then that needs to be accounted for," he said.
"You also have to account for the idea that digging the grave itself will also need extra equipment to keep it safe."
He added: "Would it be more reasonable to maybe look at that as a concessionary fee for appropriate land usage?"
A City of Wolverhampton Council spokesperson said: “No formal decision was ever taken on plans to charge more for larger burial plots.
“This is a common practice taken by councils around the country where higher charges cover the costs of providing a larger plot.
“However, while under consideration, we have decided not to proceed with the plans.”
Doncaster, Stockton-on-Tees and Walsall are among 44 local authorities in England where at least 33.3% of adults were likely to be obese in 2023/24.
The entire top 10 are located either in the Midlands, Yorkshire or the North East.
Of the 44 local authorities with at least a third of adults classed as obese in the latest year, only five are in southern England.
The estimates were published by the Office for Health Improvement & Disparities (OHID), using data from the Sport England Active Lives Adult Survey.