The Algarve’s first crematorium will be up and running in Albufeira by 2017.
Its construction has been powered by the preference of the region’s expat population for cremation over burial, the council’s health and animal safety chief Rogério Neto has told Correio da Manhã, stressing “there is a very large foreign community in the region that opts for this kind of service”.
To be located alongside the town’s ‘cemitério novo’ (new cemetery), it is to be built by an Algarve firm after two tenders were presented.
The contract is due to be signed within the next few weeks, says CM.
The so-far unnamed firm behind the deal will get a 30-year concession, paying the council €250 per month, the paper adds.
Client cremation costs will be in the region of €400, “with the council receiving a small percentage”.
“In the initial stage, estimates are for the realisation of up to 40 cremations a month, although the equipment has the capacity for more,” says the paper.
Asides from the crematorium, “an incinerator will be constructed for bones”, it claims – not explaining whether these would be bones left over from cremations, or bones of bodies exhumed from the cemetery (as is practice here, due to lack of space).
CM explains that “around 5,000 funerals take place in the Algarve” every year, and that tenders put out for the construction of crematoria in Faro and Loulé “did not have practical results”.
A definitive press release from Albufeira council is expected shortly.
