Recent press articles have talked about Pure Cremation’s new mortuary plans, to build a state-of-the-art facility on the outskirts of Nether Poppleton, a picturesque village near York.
Martin Rowley, a Conservative councilor, made some misleading statements about the facility in the articles. As he is also a local funeral director he will have had to declare his conflict of interest in this matter. How deceased are cared for at his premises, he does not say.
But this is an important subject – the current lack of regulation in the funeral profession and the varying standards of care someone may receive.
Why a mortuary is needed
When someone dies, the family need time to get the appropriate paperwork from the registrar and the time to make some important decisions. The person who has died cannot be cremated until after the paperwork has been obtained.
So until then, the deceased need to be kept safe until their cremation. Our state-of-the-art facilities make that possible.
When someone is brought into our care, they get their own, new, solid cedar coffin right from the start, and they rest peacefully in a climate-controlled, highly secure mortuary staffed by trained mortuary professionals.
In contrast, it’s possible that someone in the care of a local funeral director won’t be in a coffin until the family has chosen one. Or they might be in a ‘temporary’ coffin before being transferred into a different one later. They might be stored in a back room where people can come and go as they please. And they might not be in chilled, climate-controlled conditions (which may be why the funeral director later recommends embalming).
Why the York facility is the size it is
We believe that a proper, modern mortuary is a much better alternative. Our facility at York will be significant in size, but its day-to-day occupancy will be much lower than its maximum capacity.
However, it’s very useful to have that capacity – imagine if there was another pandemic, and the government was scrambling with makeshift facilities like last time: refrigerated tents, disused aircraft hangars and other temporary spaces repurposed to keep the deceased.
Pure Cremation works closely with local resilience partners, including coronial services, local authorities and emergency planning teams. Our facilities provide additional capacity that can support wider community resilience planning, including potential pandemic or major incident scenarios. Similar arrangements are already established at other facilities within our network.
And, what matters most is not the size of the facility, but the standards it has.
Around the UK, Pure Cremation operates purpose-built mortuary facilities with refrigeration, controlled access systems, CCTV monitoring, auditable chain-of-custody procedures and comprehensive tracking processes. Every person entrusted to our care is treated with dignity. They rest in their own coffin and they are tracked throughout their journey. Families are always informed where their loved one is resting.The Pure Cremation mortuary in York will be just the same.
The case for regulation
However, there is currently no statutory inspection regime for funeral directors in England and Wales, so these high standards are not consistently applied throughout the funeral profession.
Pure Cremation has consistently supported greater regulation, greater transparency and higher standards across the sector. We welcome proposals that would introduce independent inspection, clear minimum standards, mandatory refrigeration requirements, robust identification procedures and greater accountability for all providers.
Questions to ask any funeral provider
Families deserve to be able to ask important questions when choosing a funeral provider:
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Who has access to my loved one?
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Is access electronically recorded and auditable?
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Is the premises protected by CCTV?
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Does the business have sufficient refrigerated storage for everyone in its care?
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What identification and tracking systems are used?
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How is the risk of a mortuary mix-up prevented?
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How are deceased people stored and cared for?
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What infection control procedures are in place?
These are the standards that matter.
At Pure Cremation, we believe every family should have confidence that their loved one is being cared for in a secure, professionally managed and fully traceable environment. The future of funeral care should be built on transparency, regulation and consistently high standards.
