I REFER to the letter in the Thursday, November 20 addition of the newspaper concerning the gridlock which occurred at The Cardiff and Glamorgan Memorial Park and Crematorium on Wednesday 12 inst.

The funeral cortege congestion that occurred on that day was not the fault of the design, the imposed planning conditions of the council or bad organisation by the facility’s staff. I can say this confidently with 46 years experience behind me in this field and having built the UK’s largest publicly quoted funeral business and 11 crematoria.

The usually impeccable service as offered and deemed to be so by the testimonials on its website, was disrupted by a factor beyond the control of the architect, the planning officer or the Park’s staff. This Memorial Park is used to the very large services that take place within the region and the same are normally managed without any disruption. This is because there are 45 minute time slots that can be extended to 90 minutes upon request.

In this way, with the cooperation of the funeral directors, like other crematoria, this facility manages very large services on a weekly basis without any problem whatsoever. Notwithstanding this it is to introduce one hour times from January 1, 2015 to give greater privacy to large and small family services alike. I believe that it will be the first memorial park to do this in the UK.

However, on the day of the funeral in question this did not happen.

Cardiff and Glamorgan is built strictly in line with the discharged planning conditions and boasts more car parking spaces than most other UK facilities. This is because the average attendance of approximately 70 mourners is also higher than the normal. It has a beautiful chapel that can seat 100, can accommodate another 100 standing inside and a total of 400 attendees by use of the porte cochere.

However, all facilities, of whatever size, need to plan for exceptionally large services. Such planning can only be effective if the crematorium staff are told in advance and enough time is allowed to accommodate such services. Our staff were not in this case informed and a double time slot was not reserved. This is as unusual as it was unfortunate.

Therefore, while what happened was of the greatest regret, it is not just or fair to blame the architect, the council, the site managers or their staff.

Howard Hodgson

CEO Memoria Ltd