Tauranga families driving to Hamilton for cheaper cremations as council weighs sharp fee shake-up

A growing number of Tauranga families are travelling more than 100 kilometres to Hamilton or Rotorua to cremate their loved ones, with funeral directors collecting bodies from the Bay of Plenty several times a week and driving them to Waikato crematoriums where the fee is hundreds of dollars cheaper. Tauranga City Council is now consulting on a sweeping overhaul of cemetery and cremation fees that would slash the cremation charge but more than double the cost of a burial.

The council currently charges $979 for an adult cremation. Hamilton City Council’s crematorium charges $695, while the privately owned Te Rapa crematorium charges $705 and Rotorua Lakes Council charges $630. Under the draft 2026/27 user fees, Tauranga’s cremation fee would drop to $777, while an adult burial would rise from $5,614 to $8,426. An ash garden burial would more than triple, going from $1,500 to $4,850.

According to RNZ, Hope Family Funerals owner Tony Hope said about half of the families he supports now choose to cremate in Hamilton rather than Tauranga. “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 told the broadcaster. “Having access to these alternatives has allowed families to retain choice and reduce overall costs.”

Carla Turner, who owns the Te Rapa crematorium and operates six funeral homes including Simply Funerals in Tauranga, described the city’s pricing as “ridiculous”. She told RNZ she would prefer to continue cremating in Hamilton, as there was less financial risk for funeral directors. The council last year discontinued its 10 percent funeral director discount, which had previously offset the risk of late or non-payment by families.

Tauranga’s only crematorium is council-owned and sits at Pyes Pā. The site became the city’s sole cremator in April 2022, after Legacy Funeral Homes stopped operating its private cremator on the same road following five proven illegal discharges of cremation smoke between December 2021 and April 2022. Judge David Kirkpatrick fined the company $70,000 and ordered $15,000 in reparation to affected neighbours, who said in court that their lives had been ruined by smoke and ash. Legacy has used the council’s facility ever since.

The loss of competition combined with steep fee increases pushed Tauranga’s adult cremation rate around $285 above Hamilton’s, opening a gap large enough that funeral directors found it cheaper to drive to Waikato than cremate locally. Matua–Ōtūmoetai ward councillor Glen Crowther described the situation as a vicious cycle, with high fees pushing families to leave the city, fewer cremations deepening the deficit on the council’s cemetery and crematorium services, and that deficit putting fresh upward pressure on fees.

“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 told RNZ. “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.”

The council ran 1,308 cremations and 128 burials in the 2025 calendar year, with cremations now accounting for roughly 87 percent of services. The cemetery and cremation services run at an annual deficit of about $500,000 and are funded by user fees rather than rates. Council head of spaces and place Alison Law told RNZ cremation fees in Tauranga had historically been set higher than the cost and had subsidised burial services. The new draft would shift to a more transparent cost-of-service approach, with each fee aligned with the actual cost of providing it. “While the proposed cost increases may influence some decisions, council recognises that choices around burial or cremation are personal and influenced by many factors,” Law said.

The reset is not unanimous on the council. Tauriko ward councillor Marten Rozeboom told an earlier RNZ report on the March meeting that he did not think it was council’s role to be a competitive business, while Mayor Mahé Drysdale warned the alternative of funding the deficit from rates would add about $250,000 to the rates take. Crowther argued the cuts would help the people most exposed to cost-of-living pressure, telling councillors that more than 90 percent of people choose cremation and that the change would offer real relief at a time of cost-of-living challenges.

The 2026/27 user fees consultation is open until 22 May 2026, with submissions accepted via the council website or printed forms at city libraries. Staff will present recommendations on 12 May, with the final fee schedule expected to be confirmed in June and to take effect on 1 July 2026.

For a family choosing burial in Tauranga today, the proposed changes would lift the headline fee by more than $2,800. For a family choosing cremation, the saving would be just over $200, and they would no longer have a financial reason to send their loved one across the ranges.

What do you think — should councils cut fees to win back business from neighbouring centres, or leave the market to private operators? Have you helped a family arrange a cremation in Hamilton or Rotorua recently? Tell us in the comments.