FUTURE CONTROL OF CEMETERIES

Press, Volume LXXXIII, Issue 25304, 2 October 1947, Page 3

FUTURE CONTROL OF CEMETERIES

MAYOR’S EXPLANATION

INTERMENT AREAS NOT FOR PLAYGROUNDS

“There, has been a lot of misunderstanding by the general public, as it is not intended to use any area where interments have been made for a playground for ’children or to have the tombstones removed until an ‘opportune time,’ which might be 50 years away,” said the Mayor (Mr E. H. Andrews), commenting yesterday on the decision of the City- Council to take over the cemeteries at Addington and in Barbadoes. street. ‘Tn the first place, the request to take the cemeteries came from the two churches concerned—the Anglican Church and the Presbyterian Church —the idea being that the council take over '.these cemeteries and maintain them the same as the previous council, did many years ago with the Catholic and Methodist cemeteries,” said Mr Andrews.

In those cases, a small sum was paid in, and was an offer to do the same on this occasion. The interest of the city in these cemeteries was confined to the aspect of tidiness. “The proposal for a children’s playground in the Barbadoes street cejnetery does not apply to the land in which burials have taken place; there is a piece of land on the north side where there have been no interments,” he said.

An impression abroad was that the council had in view the demolition of headstones. The only proposal he had made was that they could be collected together and placed in neat rows for proper maintenance, at an opportune time, which might be in 50 years. In any case, the plots were freehold, and legislation would have to be passed before anything could be done. After the removal of the headstones, instead of using the land where interments had taken place for a playground, the idea was to beautify it, probably with shrubberies and gardens, he said. Mr Andrews mentioned that on one old cemetery reserve in the city, closed several years ago, a house now stood. The remains of the coffins and the headstones had been removed to Linwood Cemetery and the quarter-acre reserve was sold by the trustees.