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A crematorium has paid £145,000 extra for a super-size incinerator to cope with fat bodies. Staff have had to turn grieving families away because their deceased relatives were too large to fit in the current machines.

But Cambridge City Crematorium are to install the £145,000 FTIII, which will enable them to cremate coffins up to 43in wide. Cambridge City Council, which manages the crematorium, said the move was necessary to deal with the growing problem of incinerating larger bodies.

Cllr Tim Bick, the council's community health chief, said: ''We want to make provision for us to be able to cremate wider bodies than we can at the moment.

''There is some evidence there is a demand for that in the sense that on several occasions we have been unable to meet the need when people have come to us for cremation.''

The super-size incinerator will be installed next year, alongside two conventional ones, which can cremate bodies up to 33in wide.

Cambridge City Crematorium manager Tracy Lawrence said: ''It will allow us to serve that local need rather than having to turn away a grieving family and send them to another crematorium that could be miles away.''

The move to install the FTIII comes in response to a quarter of adults in England now being officially classed as obese.