hiked cremation fees last year<\/a>, despite feedback that this would put pressure on families.<\/p>\n\u201cHaving access to these alternatives has allowed families to retain choice and reduce overall costs,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Hope said understanding full funeral pricing meant looking beyond the cremation fee alone, noting it was one part of a bundled service covering legal, logistical and professional work required to carry out a cremation.<\/p>\n
Matua\u2011\u014ct\u016bmoetai ward councillor Glen Crowther said the council pricing had reached a point where out\u2011of\u2011district cremations were cheaper than Tauranga services, even with transport costs included.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey are actually cheaper to come all the way over here, pick up your loved one, and then take them over and they\u2019ll be cremated than what we would charge to do it if it all happened here,\u201d Crowther said.<\/p>\n
He said the higher fees were driving business elsewhere, worsening the council\u2019s financial position.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf we don\u2019t drop our charges, we\u2019re losing money anyway because we\u2019re losing hundreds of thousands of dollars a year of cremations that could come to us.\u201d<\/p>\n
![\"\u014ct\u016bmoetai]()
\u014ct\u016bmoetai ward councillor Glen Crowther. Photo \/ David Hall<\/p>\n
Crowther said the council had been overcharging for cremations and undercharging for burials, creating what he described as a \u201cvicious cycle\u201d where price increases led to lost volume, deeper deficits and further pressure to raise fees.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019ve been running it at a deficit, and the debt has built up,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf we\u2019re still going to stick to user fees and charges without any rates, some of those charges have to go up. I don\u2019t want to overcharge the public.\u201d<\/p>\n
Tauranga City Council head of spaces and place Alison Law said that historically, cremation fees in Tauranga were set higher than the cost and had subsidised burial services.<\/p>\n
She said the council was now proposing a shift to a more transparent \u201ccost of service\u201d approach through the User Fees and Charges 2026\/27 consultation.<\/p>\n
Proposed changes included dropping adult cremation fees from $979 to $777, and increasing adult burial fees from $5614 to $8426, and ash garden burial fees from $1500 to $4850.<\/p>\n
Law said the council carried out 1308 cremations and 128 burials in 2025, with long\u2011term trends showing about 87% of services were cremations and 13% burials.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhile the proposed cost increases may influence some decisions, council recognises that choices around burial or cremation are personal and influenced by many factors,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
Law said the proposals in its User Fees and Charges 2026\/27 were not final and the council welcomed public and sector feedback through consultation, which was open until May 22.<\/p>\n
Submissions could be made via the council\u2019s website or via printed forms available at libraries. <\/p>\n
\u2013 LDR is local body journalism co-funded by RNZ and NZ On Air.<\/p>\n
Ayla Yeoman<\/a> is a Local Democracy Reporting journalist based in Tauranga. She holds a Bachelor of Arts majoring in communications, politics and international relations from the University of Auckland, and has been a journalist since 2022.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"To address this, the council has proposed to lower its cremation fees and increase burial charges by thousands…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":407527,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[806,17517,49124,6434,2199,209724,5205,185565,6948,5988,12470,26524,6288,78,9066,111,43,139,69,90,48211,14727,5659,11925,544,4758,1227,165],"class_list":["post-407526","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-zealand","tag-as","tag-because","tag-cemetery","tag-cheaper","tag-city","tag-consults","tag-council","tag-cremations","tag-directors","tag-families","tag-fees","tag-funeral","tag-hamilton","tag-in","tag-loved","tag-new-zealand","tag-news","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-on","tag-ones","tag-outside","tag-say","tag-seek","tag-some","tag-taking","tag-tauranga","tag-their"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/407526","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=407526"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/407526\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/407527"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=407526"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=407526"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=407526"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}