A remote Central Otago cemetery, in a state of limbo since the 1940s, will once again take burials.
Yesterday the Cromwell Community Board granted the Nevis Cemetery "open" status.
The 0.4ha site, 40km from Cromwell on Nevis Rd, has mostly unmarked graves and only a few headstones.
It was assumed the cemetery had been officially closed as early as 1941, but the council no longer had formal records to authenticate this.
Central Otago District Council property and facilities officer Janice Remnant said work from council staff identified an area where new plots could be placed.
"We thought there would be a clear area, but there were unmarked graves, so we needed
to do ground truthing work to be sure."
The cemetery would continue to be maintained by a local volunteer group. The danger of allowing burial plots, instead of just ash plots, was burials needed to be done fairly immediately after death and the area was known for tricky driving conditions in winter, which could put families in danger.
Council chief executive Leanne Mash said it was up to drivers to decide when it was safe to go there.
Board member Shirley Calvert thought people with connections to the cemetery would want the option of "traditional" full-body burials.
The board decided to create 16 burial plots and 48 ash plots.
It also allocated $1500 for plot management and mapping work.
The costs were set at $200 for a burial plot and $100 for ash.
Burial fees were set "at cost".
The first burials at the site were believed to have been in 1898. It has the status of a Heritage New Zealand archaeological site.
