APRIL was the busiest on record for a Charlton-based crematorium, with staff working around the clock to meet demand, according to a company director.

Charlton Park Crematorium, based just outside of Andover, has seen a significant increase demand in recent months amid the coronavirus outbreak.

This is due to a number of factors, customer experience director Catherine Powell says, and as a result the facility is now operating at maximum capacity.

Catherine told the Advertiser: “We were already implementing a three-shift system to allow us to work 24/7 to meet the demands of our clients, and we have certainly been very pleased that system is in place as these days we have been operating at maximum capacity.

“That used to be a few times a month, but it is now creeping up to five days a week. And we expect to be working flat out on occasional weekends as well. But that doesn’t reflect local demand, that’s national operations.”

The crematorium offers direct cremation service throughout England and Wales, but even at a more local level it is seeing a spike in demand.

Non-hospital collections, relating to the likes of care homes and hospices, now account for 35 per cent of the crematorium’s collections, up from the usual 20 per cent.

And in Andover alone staff have seen a rise in the number of services booked, to the point that April was the crematorium’s busiest month since opening in June 2019.

“One of the more telling things is we would not expect the number of services in April to exceed the number of services in January,” Catherine added. “And that is just in Andover.”

There are various factors at play in terms of possible explanations for the rise in demand, Catherine says.

“It’s very hard to explain and to know exactly the cause but the national picture indicates people are not attending hospital for chronic conditions, whereas they might otherwise have done before,” she added.

“There is Covid in the community, of course, and that’s much harder to document. Also doctors will just not admit people to hospital if they think they will be more at risk of infection.”

Catherine stresses that it is ‘not just Covid’ that is causing the increase in demand, adding: “It’s the wider impact it’s having on other diseases and conditions and people’s general access to medical services.”

Last month a fire broke out at the facility during the early hours of the morning as nightshift staff were loading a coffin into the cremation area.

Six fire crews attended to extinguish the flames, which had broke out in a duct that transports filtered air from the interior of the cremator hall area into the chimney.

The fire was a result of 'flawed' materials used to constructing the flue, Catherine said, however the surrounding insulation panel did its job and the fire was contained.