Cemetery plan criticised

Press, 11 May 1979, Page 18

Cemetery plan criticised

The Waimairi County Council has denied the people of Waimairi a choice in the kind of cemetery they want in the opinion of the local branch of the Master Monumental Masons’ Association. The secretary of the association (Mr W. B. Burroughs has saki that the only alternative to a proposed cemetery' without head-: stones. ’ was the present] memorial cemetery at Gra- 1 hams Road, and this would; have to close in three years. The council has agreed in principle to a park cemeteryin Avonhead, at the junction of Hawthomden Road and Merrin Street. Graves will

be grassed over, and the 10-1 cation of the exact burial i sites will be available from i the sexton. The council had not acti-| • vely sought public opinion, l said Mr Burrough. and had i assumed the rights of most I and friends not to! (mark the graves. The council was talking •about an alternative cemetery after Grahams Road I closed, said Mr Burrough, (but the association wanted a ] definite statement on this proposal. "Grahams Road will have to close in less than three years,” he said. "It is a quick manoeuvre if the council says it has time to

plan another alternative: We are suspicious.” Local bodies were required by law to allow headstones in cemeteries. Mr Burrough said that the association suspected the council was opposed to setting aside a block for headstones in the proposed park cemetery, for fear it would be pressured to extend the block. “We are not opposed to the Avonhead Park cemetery as a cemetery without headstones. But we are opposed to people being denied the right of choice,” Mr Burrough said. “The council has brought the Monumental Masons in

at the final stages,” he said. “It intended it that way. That is its tactics, but why •ve do not know. “It leaves us very little time to go to our national executive and decide on firm proposals to put before the council.” Mr Burrough said he saw difficulties in running the cemetery as both a cemetery and a passive recreational reserve. New-housing developments in the area would mean that children would probably play there in large numbers, and this could be distracting to mourners