Overview

• Wolverhampton City Council confirmed it will not proceed with a proposed 20% premium on six-foot plots at Danescourt Cemetery.
• The surcharge would have raised the cost of a wider burial plot to about £2,700 compared with a standard five-foot grave.
• Funeral directors and campaigners denounced the plan as a discriminatory “fat tax” that could impose extra financial and emotional burdens on grieving families.
• A SAIF survey found that roughly a quarter of funeral directors report extra charges for larger or bariatric burials, with some authorities such as Telford, Birmingham and Walsall already applying similar fees.
• Industry bodies say higher charges reflect growing coffin widths, limited cemetery space and operational costs, but critics warn of stigma and possible exhumation scenarios when plot sizes differ.