Cemetery fees will quadruple as a town council seeks to bring charges in line with other areas. 

Uppingham Town Council charges an £85 interment fee for locals to be buried at the Leicester Road cemetery.  A second interment in the same plot is £165. 

Town clerk Adam Lowe proposed fees for both are raised to £395, more than four times the current initial cost, which the council's finance committee agreed with. Exclusive rights of burial for a single grave were also proposed to increase from £335 to £450, while headstone charges would rise from £110 to £165. 

These charges are not the total burial costs; funeral directors also charge for services such as coffins and digging the grave. 

People who live outside Uppingham are charged higher cemetery fees and this arrangement will continue. The interment cost for people living outside the county will almost double from £530 to £1,040. 

At the committee meeting in the town hall, Mr Lowe said: "I looked at all of the towns and villages through North Leicestershire and I did a sense check of what their fees are and whether they charge different amounts for people who live outside their area and nearly all of them do have different fees. So, if you live within the parish, then you pay one fee, if you are outside the parish, you pay a different fee." 

Chairman of the finance committee Trevor Colbourne said it was 'glaringly obvious' that the authority was 'way cheaper' than anywhere else for cemetery fees.  

A proposal to increase the administrative fee for the exclusive rights of burial costs for a person aged under 18 from £1 to £100 was dismissed.  

The cost of having a lease on a grave for a person who lived outside the county has also been dropped from £490 to £85 because the clerk said this cost was 'morally incomprehensible.' 

The anticipated income to the town council for this year's cemetery fees is £6,500. 

Speaking after the meeting, the clerk said the cost of maintaining the town's three cemeteries is £12,000 and in recent months there had been positive feedback on how the burial grounds are being looked after. 

The committee also decided to keep the town hall hire fees at the current rate and went through a first draft of next year's proposed precept. The proposal is to increase the budget to just under £210,000 which would mean a 4% increase for residents. 

The town council also looks after the closed cemeteries at London Road Upper and Lower Cemeteries. 

The committee's recommendations and the final budget will be decided at a full council meeting.