SERVICES held at Jersey Crematorium are to be temporarily relocated to a new facility once construction of the new hospital at Overdale begins.
Both multi-faith and non-faith services will be moved to the Members’ Room at the Royal Jersey Agricultural & Horticultural Society Showground from next spring.
Services will continue to be delivered at this temporary location until the most disruptive elements of construction have been progressed, the government said.
Cremations, interments and the use of the Garden of Remembrance will remain at the existing Overdale location.
According to a government statement, the temporary facility at the RJAHS includes:
– Up to 50 parking spaces, including accessible parking.
– Capacity for services to hold up to 100 mourners.
– Accessibility for wheelchair users and accessible for hearse and funeral cars.
– Ensures exclusive use of the space, allowing mourners the same level of privacy that the current facility provides.
– A private, off-road area for mourners to privately gather before and after services; and is within a 15-minute drive of the current Crematorium site.
Services will continue to be held four days per week in line with the current schedule. Other events at the RJAHS will take place as normal.
Health Minister Tom Binet said it was “a key priority” to ensure that Crematorium services could still go ahead “with privacy and dignity during the construction of the Acute Hospital”.
“I would also like to emphasise that, while the service aspect of the funeral proceedings will be temporarily relocated, interments, cremations and the use of the Garden of Remembrance will remain at the existing Overdale location,” he continued.
“Unlike the demolition phase, where work could be paused at the Overdale site during funeral services to minimise disruption, construction activities are much more difficult to stop due to the scale and complexity of the work involved.
“I would like to thank everyone who has been involved in getting us to this stage, specifically the Crematorium staff, the members of the Crematorium User Group, and the RJAHS members for their co-operation in finding a collective solution.”
