TWENTY-TWO people have been buried in unmarked shared graves in Oxford over the past three years, because council officers were unable to trace any relatives.

Oxford City Council carries out paupers’ funerals when people have no money to pay for their burial, and no-one else will pay or organise the ceremony.

The deceased are instead buried in an unmarked shared grave at Wolvercote Cemetery with no funeral service.

Nationally, more than 21,000 people are left needing paupers’ funerals each year, with charities estimating the numbers are increasing by 14 per cent over five years in the South East.

Oxford City Council’s environmental health team leader, Karen Dixon, said: “In Oxford, numbers seem fairly stable, but there are worried that numbers might go up if hardship increases amongst relatives.

“Some cases come along to us in which people say they have not got the funds and cannot afford to bury their relatives.”

She said council officers would always try to find relatives by looking for address books or letters, or placing adverts in the newspapers, but often they did not want the financial burden of arranging the funeral.

She said: “Quite often they are estranged from their family because of family problems or personal problems. Families quite often are not willing to come forward to take on that responsibility.”

Councils are duty-bound to bury or cremate people if there are no other arrangements to dispose of their body. Usually, the council can recover the expense of the burial from the estate of the deceased.

Pauper burials cost £1,000 and are paid for by local taxpayers.

Last year, seven people in Oxford were given pauper’s funerals, compared to nine in 2010 and six in 2009.