A new cemetery being built off State Highway 25 in Whitianga will be named ‘Kaimarama Cemetery', subject to iwi approval.

The Mercury Bay Community Board agreed to locals' suggestions to name it ‘Kaimarama' as this was the historic name which iwi and early settlers used for the area surrounding the cemetery site.

While the main internal road servicing the cemetery will be called Kiteroa Place, as ‘Kiteroa' means ‘long view' and is based on the view from the cemetery property back to Whitianga/Mount Maungatawhiri.

'In February we started developing the second phase of the new cemetery site, which sits on 5.08 hectare of farmland, by sealing the main access road, a circular car park, an entranceway and berms for a section of up some burial plots,” says a Thames-Coromandel District Council spokesperson.

'The new cemetery won't be up and running within the next 12 months, but we need to have it prepared as the existing Ferry Landing cemetery will be reaching capacity for burial sites in the next few years.”

The budget for Stage Two of the cemetery project is $487,000 and will be completed by April 2017.

The cemetery also hosts one of the Thames-Coromandel council's World War One Memorial Forest sites which pays tribute to the 37 Mercury Bay men killed in the Great War, and the more than 2000 New Zealand soldiers who fell in the Battle of Passchendaele in 1917.

For more information visit the Thames-Coromandel District Council website at: www.tcdc.govt.nz/mbcemetery