A joint cemetery to serve both Nelson and Tasman communities is looking increasingly likely as burial space in the region continues to shrink.

On Thursday, Tasman District Council formally agreed to pursue a joint facility with Nelson City Council, provided their neighbouring council also agrees.

Richmond Cemetery in Tasman is expected to only have capacity for the next 10 years, while Nelson’s Marsden Cemetery is estimated to have 15-20 years of space left.

The lead-in time for a new cemetery could take four to seven years.

The joint cemetery is hoped to have capacity for 100 years, or for about 16,000 burials, and so the councils would need to secure land that has an area of about 22 hectares, but finding suitable land of that size might prove difficult.

A council working group with iwi membership outlined several different factors to consider for the site, including groundwater depth, distance from water courses, suitable ground conditions, safe from sea level rise, slope of site, and transport accessibility.

The distance between central Nelson and central Richmond will also be considered, while trying to avoid highly productive land or land identified for housing or business growth.

A preliminary analysis of the region determined there were no appropriate sites in Nelson within 40km of the city’s centre and so the cemetery would likely be located in Tasman.

However, there are also a “limited” number of appropriate sites in Tasman, with the current possibilities looking like either Appleby or Redwood Valley.

The joint approach is favoured to create efficiencies of scale and reduce the costs associated for each council rather than each council establishing their own smaller cemeteries.

Burial and plot fees would also aligned between the two districts, where Nelsonians currently pay more to be buried and interred than Tasman residents.

While supportive of a joint approach to the cemetery, Tasman Mayor Tim King wasn’t sure whether the region needed to provide capacity for the next 100 years.

“The way things change, how fast things change – I know the one thing that doesn’t change is people dying, that is fairly consistent – … but I think solutions overtime may appear.”

Ensuring a long-term supply will delay additional and costlier land purchases in the future when there is less land available, council officers highlighted.

The councils can also modify the scope of the cemetery if the 100-year approach proves unfeasible or difficult.

The cemetery’s governance will also be familiar to each council, as they already jointly cooperate in a range of areas including the port and airport, the Saxton Field sportsground complex, future development, and transport.

After discussing a business case for the joint cemetery, Tasman’s elected members received a report a land acquisition proposal for the cemetery in confidential session.

If the councils are unable to purchase a suitable site, they are able to acquire the land through the Public Works Act.

Nelson City Council will consider agreeing to the joint cemetery proposal in the coming weeks.

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