Sociedade Funefaro Gestão de Crematórios Lda won a tender in 2011 to build a crematorium in Faro but has failed even to start work on the planned facility.
The agreement therefore has lapsed and the Council is entitled to receive compensation of €309,000 while it goes back to square one to see if there is a company that really does want to build a crematorium to serve the expatriate market.
The new tendering process has already been started by Faro council with the publication on May 30th of an open competition with bids to be in by 28th of July. If the same delay happens again and the successful bidder lets the contract lapse, the next tender will be published in 2021 with a completion date of 2026.
In March this year, Albufeira council announced that there might “soon be a crematorium available to handle some of the 5,000 deaths a year in the Algarve.” Its definition of ‘soon’ was, “sometime in 2017.”
Currently, bodies for cremation are taken to a facility in Ferreira do Alentejo near Beja, a trip of between two and three hours from the Algarve, depending on from where the journey starts.
Expat families have waited thus far for a local facility but to date there has been no council or company that successfully has taken the idea to fruition.
The estimated demand is around 40 cremations a month in the Algarve – families in Lisbon and Oporto have access to local crematoria.
The 2011 Faro tender seems to have run into difficulty early on with the then mayor Macário Correia in 2013 saying approval for a crematorium “is in its final phase.”
Albufeira council, when it was being run by interim mayor José Carlos Rolo, launched a public tender in December 2012 for the construction and management of a crematorium, stating at the time that there were “parties interested in the investment,” but nothing happened, unless he was referring to the contract for completion in 2017, some six years later.
Loulé council once planned to build a crematorium, but the sponsoring company decided to pitch for the Faro concession which never went ahead. Portimão council has long planned for a crematorium, “once it has built a new cemetery.”
Now there are two possible facilities, with the Albufeira announcement for a 2017 completion running well ahead of the Faro process which is back to square one.
Funeral Directors working with families who wish their loved ones to be cremated, are well used to the ever-present promise of “next year” and until work actually starts on a crematorium, the Algarve will continue to be served by the facility near Beja.
