In the Wellington, Wairarapa Area, CPPS operates community wWork Newtown, Lower Hutt, Upper Hutt, Porirua, Paraparaumu and Masterton. Find contact details for the Wellington/Wairarapa Area.
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Excerpt from Community Works , Issue 3, June 2005 |
A Community Work project at Wellington’s Karori Cemetery has given new meaning to the term “graveyard shift”.
Groups of offenders have been working off their Community Work sentences clearing overgrowth and debris from the northern end of the cemetery, parallel with Ian Gallaway Park to protect the headstones and grave surrounds, and make the gloomy area more accessible and headstones more visible.
The graves in the area date from the first half of the last century. The area was originally the second public area opened and spans over 28,000 square metres.
Cemetery Operations and Technical Manager Andy King says the area was planted out in native and exotic trees decades ago.
“They were initially planted to screen the cemetery from residents overlooking the site, but have now become a problem.
“Some trees have grown to the size that they’re starting to cause damage to some graves, and others are dropping a large amount of debris on the paths and plots.”
Andy says the job is more than cemetery staff can tackle by themselves. He says Wellington City Council is keen to promote the cemetery as a heritage site and it’s popular with walkers and dog owners.
Having help from Community Probation Service and the groups of offenders will break the back of the job. “These guys are clearing overgrowth, and scraping back some paths to the original asphalt.”
The area’s only ever been managed with herbicide spray. Andy hopes the manual pruning will prove more effective. His staff are doing a tree survey to identify which trees should be kept and which should be removed altogether.
Meanwhile, Senior Community Work Supervisor Laurence Gooding says the project continues a long association between the cemetery and CPS.
And Community Work Supervisor Sharpie Pue says the project is a huge job and will keep work parties busy for some time – but they’re already getting positive feedback from the regular passers-by.
“People are fascinated that it’s getting cleaned up, that they can actually walk through the plots. Before, you couldn’t walk through some places as it was just so dense.”