Purchase of equipment and associated works at Yeovil Crematorium

In 2019 a new Cremator was supplied by a company named ATI. In that same year ATI went into administration, leaving many areas of the installation incomplete and questionable at the very least. In July 2020, under emergency measures, the purchase of an FT2 Cremator was acquired from Facultatieve Technologies. Due to the crematory having two Cremators in the form of the new ATI and an existing Evans FT300 Cremator, the FT2 Cremator had to be temporarily housed outside in a purpose built container, surrounded by a scaffolding cover. In December 2020 the Evans FT300 was decommissioned on grounds relating to cost and efficiency and remains in situ at present.

The ATI Cremator has been proven during continuous testing to be unreliable and substandard in controlling emissions more frequently than would be expected of equipment that is only 3 years old. Although theoretically the ATI should have plenty of life left in it, the apparent poor quality of components and the out of date nature of some of the accompanying equipment has resulted in increasing risks of breakdown and inefficient-performance.

We propose to remove the ATI from service and on the grounds of the least disruption to our business and our provision to the community that the purchase of a new Cremator which will be Mercury and NOx abated with the existing FT2 with supporting and additional works be awarded to Facultatieve technologies. At present we already have a cremator supplied by Facultatieve technologies, in the form of the outside cremator the FT2, purchased under emergency measures in 2020.

Facultatieve Technologies could coordinate the relocating of the FT2 and the proposed purchase of the FT3 while still providing us with the ability to meet our commitments on cremations. The two Cremators, being provided by one company, allows the technology to be shared between the two machines, offering continuity and consistency for future delivery. The removal of old Cremators and the installation of the FT2 and FT3 will take approximately 26 weeks. If we were to purchase a cremator from a competitor, this time frame will at least double, with a strong possibility of greater impacts on existing business. As well as the time scale impacting heavily on the business, modifications will have to be made within the crematory with additional costs to accommodate a competitors monitoring equipment and abatement system, as well as negotiating Facultatieve Technologies current set up.