Cemetery’s legality doubted

Press, 9 May 1979, Page 6

Cemetery’s legality doubted

A Christchurch monumental mason doubts the legality of a cemetery without headstones, proposed for Avonhead.

Mr J. B. Lagan, manager of Select Memorials, a registered firm of monumental masons, says the Burial and Cremation Act, 1964, says local bodies have to leave “a reasonable area” for the erection of monuments in cemeteries under their control. He said yesterday that the Waimairi County Council planned to open a cemetery without headstones at Avonhead about a year. Not only could this be an illegal move, which only the courts would be able to test, but the council had not actively sought the views of the Waimairi public, or made any real attempt to include the monumental masons until now, he said. The Waimairi County Council has agreed in principle to a cemetery, without headstones for its 5.3 ha site at the junction of Hawthomden Road and Merrin Street. The cemetery would double as a p|j:k.

The council says it has based its decision on a report by a firm of landscape architects, Boffa Jackman and Associates, which spent five years examining changing religious, sociological, and philosophical attitudes to death and burial. The Waimairi County Engineer (Mr A. J. W. Lamb) said that the council was aware of the provisions of the Burial and Cremation Act, and believed it could meet them. The Grahams Road cemetery still left options open for persons wanting monuments over graves. Mr Lagan contended, however, that the Graham Road memorial cemetery would be full in about three years, and Waimairi residents would be left with only a cemetery without headstones. They would have to pav more for interment outside the county, he said. Mr Lamb said the council had planned for that contingency but he was not free to discuss it. Mr Lagan said the Monumental Association’s Christchurch branch had written to the council three times in 3

four years asking for talks, but each time had been told the council would meet it at an appropriate time. The consultants had spoken to florists, clergymen, ana funeral directors, but had “kept the most interested party, the monumental masons, out of the act,” Mr Lagan said. Mr Lamb said that the council felt its consultants had canvassed as widely as possible. “Everyone they, and our own landscape architects, felt could have opinions, was consulted,” he said.

This included two monumental masons, one of them the then branch secretary of the Monumental Masons’ Association. The two men might not have known at that stage that the council was beginning feasibility studies for a cemetery without headstones for Waimairi. Mr Lamb said the association had written several times but the council had decided to hold talks when its own concepts were clearer. “The present proposal is the best we can come up with, which is why we are now talking to

-tai masons,” he said. “We have decided in principle that this is what we will do. unless we can be convinced otherwise.”

The County Chairman (Mr D. B. Rich) has already said that opposition was expected from the masons on commercial grounds. Mr Lagan said the people of Waimairi did not realise that they would not be able to find a grave and place flowers on it without the help of the sexton. Identification tags under the ground would mark the spot, and these could be found only by using a metal detector. A burial guide planned for visitors would give only general areas, he said. He could see the day when the horse-trails planned through the cemetery would become the preserve of trail-bikes. In an early report to the council, the consultants had said the concept should not be attempted until it was clear that “people would accept the elimination of the personal monument.” Mr Lagan said subsequent surveys by the consultant had not canvassed the people of Waimairi. '