More than 2000 native plants were put into the ground at the Methven Cemetery recently, as part of work by Council and the Methven Lions to beautify the area.

Several Sequoiadendron giganteum (Wellingtonia) trees were also planted along the eastern boundary. The cemetery has doubled in size as part of planned development, following big winds in 2021 that brought down trees on the boundary and sparked a renovation of the area.

Methven Community Board members were given an update of the work at their first meeting this week. But before getting down to business, the board elected Kelvin Holmes as chair, Richie Owen as deputy, and nominated Megan Fitzgerald to be its representative on the Mt Hutt Memorial Hall Board and Allan Lock to the Methven Reserve Board.
Mr Holmes said he was aiming for a good and productive three-year term.

As part of an Open Spaces report early in the agenda, the board was told that the cemetery looked a lot different today than 12 months ago after the wind event that decimated the eastern treeline.

New lawns had come through winter well and been rolled, and the 2000 natives were planted on the eastern boundary in a bund created from leftover rubble from the tree extraction. The Methven walkway has been reinstated alongside this edge of the cemetery.

Deputy mayor Liz McMillan said the big planting day had been a success and the area was looking good. A seat donated by a past resident had also been repositioned at the cemetery.

Council staff have suggested another tree planting day next winter, using the activity to promote Arbour Day.

The community board also dealt with three funding requests, rejecting one and partially granting two others; the board has an annual $25,000 discretionary fund that it administers.

The board granted $1178.50 to Methven Touch Rugby for bibs, balls, cones and other equipment to help grow the game in the junior space. It also granted $2000 to the Methven Lions, who have taken over the maintenance of the bike skills park.

A request for $7540 from Mt Hutt College to support a team going to the touch nations in Rotorua was declined, as it did not meet the criteria for the funding. The board will support their application to other funders, like the New Zealand Community Trust.

In infrastructure updates, the board was told that ACL was connecting the first of two new reservoirs to the town’s drinking water scheme; a second new tank should be operational by February next year.

Negotiations are under way with contractors to carry out the remainder of the drinking water upgrade work, which includes a new membrane treatment plant and new pipelines to connect the Methven Springfield scheme.

Renewal of a sewer main between McDonald Street and Dolma Street, through Mt Hutt College, is expected to be completed in the next week or so.

Some minor works are also being carried out at the town’s wastewater treatment plant, including adding a flowmeter, dissolved oxygen monitoring and renovation of the distribution channels in the infiltration basins. The changes will allow better monitoring of the site’s performance.

The board asked for clarification on the positioning of the planned gravel path alongside State Highway 77 to Opuke hot pools, wanting to know exactly where on the roadside it would be formed.

Within the community board’s boundary, 60 building consents were issued from January to September, compared to 41 in 2021; the value of the work for the year to date was $25,422,697 (compared to $8,778,890 in 2021). The busiest month was March, when 16 consents were issued.

The community board has retained its six-week meeting cycle and will meet next on Monday 12 December, at 10.30am. The first meeting of the new year will be Monday 30 January.

Below: New plantings at the Methven Cemetery