{"id":684199,"date":"2026-01-09T09:47:10","date_gmt":"2026-01-09T09:47:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/684199\/"},"modified":"2026-01-09T09:47:10","modified_gmt":"2026-01-09T09:47:10","slug":"bereaved-families-criticise-greater-manchesters-tax-on-grief","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/684199\/","title":{"rendered":"Bereaved families criticise Greater Manchester&#8217;s &#8216;tax on grief&#8217;"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Every year in Greater Manchester about 15% of burials are for &#8220;non-local&#8221; residents.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">As a result, the councils are collecting more than \u00a3500,000 every year in non-resident fees. <\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Wigan is the only borough in Greater Manchester where there is a flat charge for everyone.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Grant Longden, from Mulligan&#8217;s Funeral Services in Stockport, has been challenging the other councils to explain why the extra fees are justified. <\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">He said some had told him it had been their policy since the 1860s.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;Some families are stuck between guilt and debt,&#8221; he said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;Some people will go into debt in order to look after their loved ones and have them buried exactly where they wanted.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;It&#8217;s my responsibility as a funeral director dealing with vulnerable people that I have to safeguard them as well.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;I&#8217;m asking for fairness &#8211; I&#8217;m not asking for anything that I feel is outrageous. Other funeral directors feel the same way about it as well.&#8221;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Every year in Greater Manchester about 15% of burials are for &#8220;non-local&#8221; residents. As a result, the councils&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":684200,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8813],"tags":[748,393,4884,2465,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-684199","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-manchester","8":"tag-britain","9":"tag-england","10":"tag-great-britain","11":"tag-manchester","12":"tag-uk","13":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115864512716261564","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/684199","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=684199"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/684199\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/684200"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=684199"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=684199"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=684199"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}