A long-awaited Waveney memorial park and crematorium serving parts of Waveney and south Lowestoft will be officially opened at Ellough this month.

Memoria Ltd will manage the facility which aims to address the existing gap in service for around 120,000 people.

The site on Warrens Lane, near the junction with Benacre Road, includes gardens of remembrance, a car park, access road, chapel and other buildings used for cremation services.

The site, which opens on Monday, November 16, will offer cremation, natural burial and traditional burial services while the gardens of remembrance offers memorialisation made from stone to blend in with the surroundings.

The crematorium can accommodate 100 people seated and up to 400 people if required.

The company started looking for suitable sites in the area back in 2006 and planning permission was granted last year.

It is hoped the memorial park will reduce the distance travelled by funeral vehicles by 180,000 miles a year, with currently the closest crematorium 20 miles away in Gorleston.

Memoria Ltd has more than 80 years’ experience in the bereavement care industry and has built 12 such facilities across the UK in the past decade. Memoria’s CEO Howard Hodgson said: “Bereavement is the price we must all pay for the joy of loving and being loved.

“The loss of a loved one is the most stressful, unhappy and traumatic experience that we will face in life.

“We know it is our responsibility and duty to be as efficient, kind, respectful and polite as humanly possible to our clients at their time of grief and thereafter when they return to remember their cherished relatives or friends.”

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