Planners have given the green light for a funeral home to build the Island’s first crematorium.

Amis Memorial Chapel’s plans to erect the new facility in St David’s, on vacant land on Wallers Point Road, near the TCD centre, have been given formal approval by the Development Applications Board (DAB).

The project will involve the construction of the crematorium itself, an above-ground liquid petroleum gas tank and an 8ft security fence on the land, which is owned by the Bermuda Land Development Company (BLDC). The successful application is the end of a long journey for the funeral home, which has previously applied unsuccessfully for permission to build a crematorium on three alternative sites.

Amis Memorial Chapel now needs formal approval from BLDC to rent the land before construction work can begin.

“We hope that if BLDC give their approval we should be able to build the crematorium in about four months,” said grief counsellor Martha Amis.

“This is something that the Island very much needs and we are delighted that the DAB has given its approval for the project.

“We have now provided all the information to BLDC and hope to hear back from them soon about rental arrangements for the lot.

“We had to jump through a lot of hoops to get this far and conduct several emission surveys to the satisfaction of various entities. That work has all proved very worthwhile.

“It has been a long road, but we are very pleased that we are making progress.”

The latest crematorium application was the fourth time that Amis had tried to get permission to build such a facility in Bermuda.

Previously, the funeral home proposed building a crematorium at Well Bottom in Warwick, next to its funeral home in Warwick, and most recently at Industrial Road in Southampton.

However, all three proposals were rejected by the DAB.

“The key thing to stress about this location is that there are no houses nearby,” said Ms Amis.

“That had been a concern in the past, although it need not have been given the highly sophisticated technology used in these kind of developments. We have seen demand for cremations rise and rise in Bermuda and we hope that this crematorium will satisfy that demand and provide a much less expensive alternative to what we have to do at the moment.

At present, anyone who wishes to have a relative cremated has to pay for the body to be flown off the Island to Canada and then transported to New Jersey, before the ashes can be returned to the family.

Architectural technician, Keith Simons, said: “This project will be the first of its kind in Bermuda.

“We have had to fulfil many requirements along the way and there are still some more conditions that we will have to abide by.

“It’s been a real learning curve and we are very pleased to have reached this point now.”