THE COST of hiring a football pitch, taxi licences, burying your loved ones and getting married at the Guildhall all looks set to rise next year as part of the council’s planned changes to fees and charges.

Worcester City Council has revealed it wants to raise the cost of burials and cremations held in the city as well as charge more for collecting bulky garden waste, hackney carriage and private hire taxi licences and charging more for some of its Guildhall wedding packages.

The council said the majority of the two per cent increases were to bring prices in line with inflation.

The council’s all-day ‘Gheluvelt’ wedding package – which includes the ceremony, breakfast and evening reception at the Guildhall – would increase by £750 to £3,000. The ‘Severn’ package which includes breakfast and an evening reception in several of the Guildhall’s rooms would increase by 40 per cent to £2,250.

The higher price of a wedding at the Guildhall is due to the permanent availability of an in-house bar following a successful trial and the proposed cost of security, the council said.

The cost of a burial would increase by £18 to £918 and the cost of a cremation would rise by £16 to £822.

Worcester City Council has routinely ruled out increasing car parking charges and prices would remain the same next year. Parking fines would also stay the same.

The council said it expects to make around £100,000 more from the rise in fees and charges.

However, the council says this will only be a 0.9 per cent increase largely due to its two biggest earners - car parking and garden waste collection - seeing no increases.

The cost of collecting bulky garden waste is also set to rise significantly with the council charging £10 a bag with a five-bag minimum – an increase of 138 per cent.

Annual fees for garden waste collection would remain at £62.50, the registration fee for setting up a direct debit would be scrapped, and the cost of a second green bin would be cut in half to £31.25.

The city council's annual fee for garden waste collection is the second highest in Worcestershire, only behind Malvern Hills District Council which charges £72.50 a year, and £14.50 more expensive than Wychavon District Council.

A host of fees for taxi drivers would all increase including a £11 increase to £420 for first-time applications for a hackney carriage licence and a £10 increase to £360 for licence renewals.

Private hire drivers would be expected to pay £390 - an extra £8 – for a new licence and an extra £9 pushing it up £330 to renew the licence from next year.

The cost of a taxi operators' licence would rise by £5 to £260 for first-time applications and renewals. A five-year renewal would increase by £20 to £990.

Block-booking an adult’s football pitch in Worcester would increase by £10.

The cost of a new sex establishment licence would increase by £45 to £2,145.

The majority of fees and charges for gambling licences would increase by around two per cent with a licence for a bookies increasing to £1,887 and a bingo hall licence increasing to £2,198.10.

The cost of hiring Worcester City Art Gallery for the evening would increase by 112 per cent on last year’s price – from £330 to £700. The council said this was in order to bring it in line with charges from other similar businesses.

The council’s income generation subcommittee meets next Tuesday (January 14) to discuss the increases.