By Ayla Yeoman, Local Democracy Reporting of RNZ and is republished with permission
Some Tauranga families are taking their loved ones outside the city for cremations because it is cheaper, funeral directors say.
It comes as Tauranga City Council proposes changes to its cemetery fees to stem a growing financial deficit.
The council has been using higher cremation fees – the vastly more popular service – to subsidise burial fees, but one councillor believes that’s driving cremation customers elsewhere and making the financial situation worse.
Tauranga’s cemetery and cremation services are funded by user fees, not council rates, but run at a deficit of about $500,000 a year.
To address this, the council has proposed to lower its cremation fees and increase burial charges by thousands of dollars.
The council, which owns and operates Tauranga’s only crematorium, has proposed to drop its adult cremation fee by about $200 to $777.
Hamilton City Council charges $695 for an adult cremation, and the fee is $705 at that city’s privately-owned Te Rapa crematorium.
Te Rapa crematorium owner Carla Turner, who also operates six funeral homes across the central North Island, including Simply Funerals in Tauranga, said Tauranga’s cremation prices were “ridiculous” and had pushed families and funeral homes to seek cheaper alternatives.
Funeral home and crematorium owner Carla Turner. Photo: LDR / Supplied
Turner said since Legacy Funerals stopped operating its cremator, prices had risen sharply, making it far cheaper to cremate loved ones in Hamilton or Rotorua.
She said her business collected bodies from Tauranga several times a week to cremate in Hamilton.
“It’s much cheaper,” she said.
Turner said families occasionally still wanted their loved one cremated in Tauranga.
Even if Tauranga brought its prices down as proposed, she would prefer to continue cremating in Hamilton, as there was less financial risk for funeral directors.
She said Hamilton City Council invoiced families directly, and Tauranga City Council no longer offered its 10 percent funeral director discount, which previously helped offset the risk of families paying late or not at all.
Hope Family Funerals owner Tony Hope said families decided where their loved ones were cremated.
Tony Hope of Hope Family Funeral Services. Photo: LDR / George Novak
“At the moment, cremation in Hamilton is a more affordable option, so we make families aware of that.
“Around half of the families we support now choose Hamilton over Tauranga, while the other half still choose Tauranga.”
He said if the council’s fee for cremation, plus transport costs, became competitive with what Hamilton offered, he would expect more families to choose cremation in Tauranga.
Hope said the locally-owned business started looking at alternative cremation options after Tauranga City Council hiked cremation fees last year, despite feedback that this would put pressure on families.
“Having access to these alternatives has allowed families to retain choice and reduce overall costs,” he said.
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.
Matua‑Ōtūmoetai ward councillor Glen Crowther said the council pricing had reached a point where out‑of‑district cremations were cheaper than Tauranga services, even with transport costs included.
Ōtūmoetai ward councillor Glen Crowther. Photo: LRD / David Hall
“They are actually cheaper to come all the way over here, pick up your loved one, and then take them over, and they’ll be cremated than what we would charge to do it if it all happened here,” Crowther said.
He said the higher fees were driving business elsewhere, worsening the council’s financial position.
“If we don’t drop our charges, we’re losing money anyway because we’re losing hundreds of thousands of dollars a year of cremations that could come to us.”
Crowther said the council had been overcharging for cremations and undercharging for burials, creating what he described as a “vicious cycle” where price increases led to lost volume, deeper deficits and further pressure to raise fees.
“We’ve been running it at a deficit, and the debt has built up,” he said.
“If we’re still going to stick to user fees and charges without any rates, some of those charges have to go up. I don’t want to overcharge the public.”
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.
She said the council was now proposing a shift to a more transparent “cost of service” approach through the User Fees and Charges 2026/27 consultation.
Proposed changes included dropping adult cremation fees from $979 to $777, increasing adult burial fees from $5614 to $8426, and ash garden burial fees from $1500 to $4850.
Law said the council carried out 1308 cremations and 128 burials in 2025, with long‑term trends showing about 87 percent of services were cremations and 13 percent burials.
“While the proposed cost increases may influence some decisions, council recognises that choices around burial or cremation are personal and influenced by many factors,” she said.
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 22 May.
Submissions could be made via the council’s website or via printed forms available at libraries.
– LDR is local body journalism co-funded by RNZ and NZ On Air.
