Iwi set to fight road threat to cemetery

Ngati Toa will oppose any interference with their cemetery on Pukerua Bay Hill north of Wellington if the coastal section of State Highway 1 is upgraded to four lanes.

The coastal highway route was decided on last month as the way to improve Wellington's northern transport access, ahead of the more expensive Transmission Gully.

Ngati Toa spokesman Matiu Rei said the iwi did not want their cemetery on the northern side of Pukerua Bay Hill disturbed.

Transit New Zealand's regional manager, Graham Taylor, said he did not know about the burial ground but believed a team reviewing the options would know about it.

"A bunch of different four-laning options have been investigated," he said. "The plans in the review are only conceptual.

"We will be talking to the Pukerua Bay community, iwi and anyone else affected by the proposal. I know there are sacred Maori sites along the coastal route."

Concept plans for four lanes on the northern side of Pukerua Bay Hill included a high concrete wall between north and southbound carriageways, cuts into the hillside and a split-level expressway built on a combination of bridges and cuttings.

A pa and burial site were once in the area and bones were exhumed and moved to the cemetery when the section of State Highway 1 was built in the late 1930s.

"It would be very short-sighted to put a stake in the ground with such ambivalent information," Mr Rei said.

The burial site was a gazetted Ngati Toa cemetery, where it was believed about eight bodies were buried, including two chiefs and Maori World War I hero Joe Bird Cotton, also know as Manu Katene.

- NZPA