Leave Patiti Point alone, says group

A Timaru group is attempting to have Patiti Point registered as an area of historical importance.

Speaking at the Timaru District Council's public forum yesterday, Friends of Patiti Point spokesman Jeff Elston said the group was opposed to the building of any commercial structure on such an historic site.

"The erection of a funeral home or a beachside habitation or other, on Patiti Point, will desecrate the tapu of this burial place and we will lose another part of our local history to the advent of `development'."

Mr Elston said there were eight historically significant sites in the area including a Maori encampment, whalers' lookout, and the grassy hollow where Bishop Selwyn held the first divine service in South Canterbury.

A town was set up at Patiti Point in 1874 to house newly-arrived immigrants.

It developed a reputation as a place of squalor and hardship and was quarantined off for some time due to the outbreak of disease.

Although the town was razed in 1883, a number of bodies remain interred at that site.

Moa bones and a moa hunter's necklace, thought to be more than 800 years old, were found in the area in the 1940s. Those finds predated Maori habitation by 250 years.

Mr Elston said the area encompassed all the required characteristics outlined by the New Zealand Historic Places Trust relating to aesthetic, archeological, cultural, historical, spiritual and traditional qualities of a given area.

He suggested there were many locations within the area that required further archeological investigation.

The "Friends" were well aware that registration would not guarantee protection, but outlined the huge historical significance the area had contributed to the development of New Zealand's culture and the birth of Timaru.

Regulatory services manager Peter Thompson said any plans for the development of the area were nothing more than discussion at this stage as no formal application had been received.

- © Fairfax NZ News