A demolition project in a Masterton cemetery which has been on the cards for eight years is finally coming to fruition with tenders being sought to lower the cremation wall at Riverside Cemetery.
The wall has, according to Masterton District Council, been disintegrating and an intense hunt has been on-going for years to find relatives of those whose ashes were located there.
Council spokesman Sam Rossiter-Stead said all but the relatives of four of the deceased had been found and the ashes transferred to other locations.
As all possible steps had been taken to find the families of the four who remained outstanding, without success, they would now be moved.
He said the families who had been contacted had invariably been co-operative and the way was now open for the old wall, built during the tenure of former parks and reserves expert Colin Pugh, to be demolished, the ground levelled and a perimeter wall constructed.
