A COMMUNITY cemetery in Newport will be scrapping child burial fees.

Earlier this week, Rogerstone community council took the decision to remove interment fees for anyone under the age of 16 at Rogerstone and Bassaleg community cemetery, with the policy being implemented as of Monday.

Rogerstone community councillor Kath Hopkins, who sits on the Rogerstone and Bassaleg burial board, said: “As a debt and benefits advisor, I often see how people find it difficult to pay for funeral costs because they are very high. Any death is heart breaking, but the loss of a child is unbearably painful – there is nothing more traumatic.

“To have to go into debt to bury a child, it is also heart breaking and it is right that, at this tremendously difficult time, parents do not have to also face financial hardship.”

Bassaleg community councillor John Harris said the Welsh Government has been leading the way in making sure child burials are free. Carwyn Jones announced earlier this year at the party’s conference that the Welsh Government would be scrapping child burial fees.

“Our decision follows their initiative,” he said.

Ms Hopkins added: “Hopefully, we can spread this across the UK. Newport is already not charging for the burial of people under the age of 16, but we had not done so yet.”

Other parts in Gwent which have dropped charges to bury children include Caerphilly County Borough Council and Torfaen County Borough Council.

In addition, Torfaen council has launched a new service to provide a basic funeral service after seeing an increase in the number of people choosing to have loved ones buried in shared public graves as they could not afford a private grave and full funeral service.

Ms Hopkins added the cemetery opened in 1968 and that, at the end of 2015, there were 474 burial plots and 50 remembrance garden plots.