The crematorium has been approved for the site at Griffith Regional Funeral Services on Wakaden Street. Photo: Oliver Jacques.
Griffith ratepayers are set to foot the bill for a new cremator in town, after the local council voted in favour of entering into a lease agreement with a funeral business that is establishing a new crematorium at 172-174 Wakaden Street, opposite Marian Catholic College.
Under the arrangement, council will spend $400,000 to purchase a cremator, which it will lease to Griffith Regional Funeral Services, who will in turn pay council a fee for each cremation.
A majority of councillors voted in favour of this arrangement at a closed council session (not broadcast to the public) on Tuesday (8 April).
Rival company Trenerry Funerals are also launching a crematorium in town this year, though its service will be privately funded.
This means that after having no crematorium for so long, Griffith is set to have two.
The Sikh community in Griffith has long pushed for the establishment of this facility in town, as their religion prefers the burning of dead bodies to burials.
The absence of a local facility has meant this group has had to travel to Wagga to use this service, which is both costly and time-consuming at a difficult time for families.
Trenerry Funerals director Daniel Calabro says having two services in town will be good for consumers but bad for ratepayers.
“There’s no way council are getting a cremator now for $400,000, with the way prices have gone up and with everything happening in the US, it’ll cost $500,000 to $600,000,” he said.
“We’re putting our crematorium in regardless … I think it’ll end up like what’s happened in Wagga – nobody will use the council-owned cremator.”
Daniel Calabro, Vanessa Barnes and Jake Hubbard on the site of the Trenerry Funeral crematorium at 1-3 Battista Street in Yoogali. Photo: Oliver Jacques.
He said he didn’t think the council would recoup their investment, meaning ratepayers’ money would be wasted.
In December 2024 councillor Scott Groat questioned the location of the council-backed crematorium on Wakaden Street.
“It’s near a busy highway and it’s next to a school,” he said. ”That’s the feedback I’m getting from the community. I wouldn’t want a crematorium next to me; it belongs in a parkland right out of town … that’s the case for other crematorium too.”
Mr Calabro said he was surprised that planning laws would allow a cremator to be located opposite a school.
A Region investigation revealed 172-174 Wakaden Street was quietly rezoned to allow for a crematorium to be built there in 2023.
In December, Region asked Griffith Council why it rezoned this premises and whether there was any public consultation on this decision. It did not respond to our questions.
The NSW Planning Department said this change was coincidental – rezoning was undertaken to several sites as part of broader productivity reforms and not specifically to enable a particular company to install a cremator.
