A funeral director says Auckland Council should have moved faster to ease burial space demand at New Zealand’s largest cemetery.
Waikumete Cemetery in West Auckland has paused the sale of adult burial plots until 2027 – when an additional 800 burial plots are set to be created.
Funeral director Rachel Benns said there will be an impact on local families.
“Waikumete has been well known to be running out of space for some time and the council seems to have taken a slow time to react to that,” Benns said.
“This should have been in place prior to them running out of that land, there should be another option for our West Auckland families.
“Waikumete has nearly been closed for burials [for] 12 months and that can be really distressing for families.”
More than 70,000 people have been laid to rest at the 108-ha cemetery that was established in 1886.
Last December, Auckland Council tried to acquire new land in the northwest area of Reweti under the Public Works Act.
However, that process is now before the Environment Court after an objection from the private landowner with a court date yet to be set.
One proposal for a massive facility would dwarf the township of Waimāukū. (Source: 1News)
Benns, who has three decades of experience as a funeral director, said the cemeteries where there is space aren’t close to the West Auckland community.
“If you had your mother and father buried at Waikumete and you always thought in your head you’d always be buried with your family or in [the] same cemetery and you’re now being told you can’t, it can be a real challenge on top of a family already grieving,” she said.
“It’s hard for our lower socio-economic families who perhaps have to go to Manukau Memorial [Gardens] or Māngere [Lawn Cemetery] and you know, that’s considerable travel.
“For a lot of our Pasifika families, they like to visit on a Sunday and spend the day. It’s going to impact them on how they get there, whether it’s a public transport route, how are they going to manage going that further distance.”
‘Capacity constraint’
Auckland Council parks and community facilities general manager Taryn Crewe said that land in Reweti could provide decades worth of provision in northwest Auckland.
“It’s one of our preferred areas to establish a new cemetery,” Crewe said.
“We have started the Public Works Act process and we’re currently in that process so there’s not a lot I can say about the detail.”
Should the Environment Court not rule in the council’s favour, Crewe said they’d look for alternatives in the area.
“If something happens along the way where we weren’t able to purchase that particular piece of land, work has been done to identify other areas,” Crewe said.
“But they’re not the type of property we want compared to this one. We’d have to go back to the drawing board again and start that process again with other landowners.”
He said legal issues had slowed the acquisition of new burial land.
“From the 2022 decision with the committee we hoped we could have progressed things with a willing seller and willing buyer way quicker, but that’s just the nature of the process.”
Auckland Council is working with families to provide alternatives at Waikumete, Crewe said.
“We acknowledge that fact that there’s a capacity constraint, but if it’s full, it’s full – there’s not much else we can really do.
“Many families are choosing what we call stacking the burial plot, where they might have a family member, they can disinter those family members and put another family member on the same plot.
“We get a lot of enquiries from West Auckland about reusing or maximising the use of burial plots, that’s something we continue to work through with the community.”
Waikumete Cemetery is also the Southern Hemisphere’s largest burial ground for service personnel of the World Wars and post-war veterans.
It included an Erebus Memorial, a Holocaust Memorial, the New Zealand Influenza Epidemic Memorial and an ANZAC Cenotaph.
By Victor Waters of rnz.co.nz
