The Central Otago District Council has adopted its new cemeteries bylaw, with a few tweaks.
A council meeting this week approved the Cemeteries Bylaw 2020, and Cemeteries Handbook 2020 to address and regulate the management of cemeteries in the Central Otago district.
The bylaw replaces the expired Cemeteries and Crematoria Bylaw 2008.
The bylaw presented yesterday had been amended to clarify that it does not apply to trust-managed cemeteries.
The proposed bylaw does apply to cemeteries and burial grounds not owned by the council but controlled and managed by council.
This future-proofed the bylaw, by providing for trusts which no longer wished to continue managing a cemetery to transfer management to the council.
The attention of councillors turned to wording as set out in the handbook.
Cr Tamah Alley said the line ‘‘no more than two deceased persons can be interred in each burial plot’’ discounted situations where more than one person was in a casket — such as a mother and daughter.
It was agreed to swap the word ‘‘persons’’ for ‘‘caskets’’.
The bylaw allows for two caskets and four ash interments per plot.
That was something Cr Lynley Claridge earlier said should be made clear, before she declared a conflict of interest as owner of Affinity Funerals.
