A Dundee funeral directors that launched 10 years ago is opening new offices in the city.
Affertons Funeral Care was initially launched by Paul Craigie in 2013 from premises on Clepington Road.
In 2020 the site was hit by a fire that started in a neighbouring takeaway.
The following year, it moved to new state-of-the-art premises on Strathmartine Road.
Now, the business is planning to expand with a satellite office in the Fintry area of the city.
Paul said he had been looking at opening in the area for a number of years.
He believes the new office will fill a gap in the city’s funeral care market.
He said: “Over the years a lot of people have made noises to me that there’s no funeral directors at this end of town.
“This has always been a target area of mine, even when I started out 10 years ago.
“The place next door, which is now a bookmakers, was on my radar when we were starting out, and here we are.”
Making inroads in ‘tight-knit’ community
Paul also hopes the close-knit nature of the community will help word spread about the service his team provides.
But unlike the Strathmartine Road site, funeral services won’t take place at the new Fintry premises.
Paul added: “If we can make some inroads here, I think word will soon spread that we do a good job. I’m sure we’ll fare quite well here.
“We’ll not have services here – it’s not big enough, But it means people from this area won’t have to travel a distance to discuss their funeral wishes in their time of need. We’ll be on their doorstep.”
New Fintry office for Affertons Funeral Care
Paul admitted to finding out about the property “by accident” while talking to the owner.
He explained: “We came up to see the former dentists unit behind us. While we were speaking to the owners, they said it was three-quarters of the way through construction.
“It’s a corner site and highly visible. Because it’s new we can put our own stamp on it. It was a no-brainer.”
Paul said he plans to staff the new offices with the existing Affertons team initially, but anticipates creating up to four new jobs once it is established.
“In the first instance, we’re going to see how it goes with our current staff. But we’ll probably need to bring in staff.
“The number of funerals we’re doing is going up every year and that’s without this office. We’ve broken 200 funerals this year.
“We’ll probably need another two full-time and at least two part-time staff for on-call stuff.”
