GRIEVING families face delays in arranging funeral services because of a sudden, unexplained increase in deaths in the York area.

Peak-time appointments at York Crematorium are booked up a week in advance, forcing families to wait two or three days more than usual for a service.

Doctors with the county's public health department say there is no apparent reason for the increase in deaths.

A spokeswoman said: "We tend to see an increase in deaths in the winter months." But given the recent mild spell, the rising number of deaths were not related to the weather, she added.

Robert Livesey, superintendent registrar in York, said although no figures were available, the office had recorded more deaths than usual for the time of year.

He said: "We can tell by the number of appointments and the number of people coming in that there has been an increase.

"Normally we see an increase if there has been a cold snap.

"There have been no unusual reasons for it or unusual causes of death."

York funeral director David Rymer said the business had been very busy in the past couple of weeks.

He said: "When someone dies, you can reckon on about three days before the funeral takes place, as far as the crematorium is concerned, that's where the majority take place. But the wait is a couple of days longer than what it would normally be."

He added: "It's just something that happens, there is nothing you can do about it.

"We find families are very understanding. Anything like this, they tend to know from the hospital or the registrar that it is a busy period.

"It's happened before and it will happen again. There is just not much you can do about it."

A spokeswoman for the City of York Council, which runs the crematorium, near Bishopthorpe, said the most popular appointments between 11am and 3pm were fully booked this week, but said other times around these were still available.

However, Mr Rymer explained that most families wanted times around lunch-time to give people enough time to travel to the funeral and attend the wake.

The city council said a solution at busy times was for families to arrange services at church and have the body cremated without a service at the crematorium.

Converted for the new archive on 30 June 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.