The council now has the ability to clean up graves if family members can't be contacted. Photo / Bevan Conley
The council now has the ability to clean up graves if family members can't be contacted. Photo / Bevan Conley
Whanganui District Council has approved $20,000 to design a water feature at Aramoho Cemetery.
Members of the public will be able to scatter the ashes of loved ones into the finished project.
The water feature was part of discussions on the council’s new cemeteries and crematoria bylaw, which was approved at yesterday’s strategy and policy committee meeting.
Despite getting the green light, aspects of the feature were questioned by committee members.
Councillor Rob Vinsen asked if there was an estimate of the total cost of the project.
“If it’s a $20,000 design fee - 10 per cent - that’s a $200,000 project,” he said.
“Is there a will to spend $200,000 on a water feature?”
Council policy officer Hannah Rodgers said the design budget needed to be assigned under the council’s annual plan for 2023/24 and once the design work was finished, there would be a full discussion of the entire cost, which was as yet unknown.
Councillor Peter Oskam said up to $10,000 needed to be added to the design budget and Cr Charlie Anderson said he had “visions of ashes getting mixed up and families getting upset about it”.
Rodgers said design work for the feature was still “very much in the conceptual stage”.
“A conversation was had around, essentially, you could have a burial there and, over the next day or so, that should be enough time for the ashes to settle down and be filtered out.
“There shouldn’t be an issue about keeping ashes separate.”
Vinsen and Cr Michael Law were the only two to vote against the proposal.
Alcohol will continue to be permitted in Whanganui cemeteries under the new bylaw.
Of the 22 public submissions, seven were against it and 11 were in favour. Three neither agreed nor disagreed and one didn’t answer.
Councillor Rob Vinsen was opposed to the consumption of alcohol in cemeteries and said the council couldn't do anything about bad behaviour at grave sites. Photo / Bevan Conley
Rodgers told the committee the most common public objections were focused on littering and disruptive behaviour.
“They would be against the rules regardless of how we proceeded on the subject of alcohol,” she said.
“If there is an increase in actual issues we do have the option of revisiting this in the future.”
Police could be called, either by cemetery attendees or council staff, in the event of unruly behaviour, Rodgers said.
“Obviously, when it comes to things like dangerous driving, like somebody doing a burnout, our [council’s] compliance officers are not in a position to be able to stop somebody doing that.
“The police would be contacted.”
Council chief executive David Langford said a lot of frontline council staff were provided training on how to assess situations when dealing with confrontational members of the public or antisocial behaviour.
“If it is within a tolerable threshold, where the personal safety of our staff is deemed not to be at risk, then they will likely intervene on low-level poor behaviour issues.
“If there is any perception that their personal safety is at risk, our default is to ring the police and get their support.”
“We can’t have burials at various different depths because of work [that] needs to be done on the landscape. We need to know it’s safe to do so.”
One issue included in the bylaw that had almost complete public support was the ability for the council to clean up graves when the family could not be contacted.
Rodgers said third-party groups would be used to carry out the work.
The bylaw recommendations will be finalised at a full council meeting on May 30.
