Weston is a town situated inland from
Oamaru
Oamaru (; mi, Te Oha-a-Maru) is the largest town in North Otago, in the South Island of New Zealand, it is the main town in the Waitaki District. It is south of Timaru and north of Dunedin on the Pacific coast; State Highway 1 and the railway ...
,
South Island
The South Island, also officially named , is the larger of the two major islands of New Zealand in surface area, the other being the smaller but more populous North Island. It is bordered to the north by Cook Strait, to the west by the Tasman ...
,
New Zealand
New Zealand ( mi, Aotearoa ) is an island country in the southwestern Pacific Ocean. It consists of two main landmasses—the North Island () and the South Island ()—and over 700 smaller islands. It is the sixth-largest island count ...
. It is regarded as one of the more affluent towns of the
Waitaki District
Waitaki District is a territorial authority district that is located in the Canterbury and Otago regions of the South Island of New Zealand. It straddles the traditional border between the two regions, the Waitaki River, and its seat is Oamaru. ...
and had a population of 1,050 in the 2018 census.
The town is serviced by a local fire station staffed by volunteers, Four Square chain supermarket, Weston Community Church and the local Weston co-educational primary school.
As with the surrounding areas in North Otago,
agriculture
Agriculture or farming is the practice of cultivating plants and livestock. Agriculture was the key development in the rise of sedentary human civilization, whereby farming of domesticated species created food surpluses that enabled people to ...
is an important economic activity.
Limestone and cement
Weston is home to the largest
Oamaru stone
Oamaru stone, sometimes called whitestone, is a hard, compact limestone, quarried at Weston, near Oamaru in Otago, New Zealand.
Oamaru stone was used on many of the grand public buildings in the towns and cities of the southern South Island, es ...
quarry in New Zealand, supplying New Zealand and exporting much overseas. The quarry lies a further mile inland from Weston along the Weston/Ngapara Road, so its daily operation is not noticed by Weston residents.
International cement manufacturer
Holcim
Holcim is a Swiss-based global building materials and aggregates flagship division of the Holcim Group. The original company was merged on 10 July 2015 with Lafarge to form LafargeHolcim as the new company and renamed to Holcim Group in 2021 ...
has gained consent to open a
cement
A cement is a binder, a chemical substance used for construction that sets, hardens, and adheres to other materials to bind them together. Cement is seldom used on its own, but rather to bind sand and gravel ( aggregate) together. Cement mix ...
plant near Weston, involving further limestone quarrying.
The application prompted the founding of the Waiareka Preservation Society, which opposes the planned plant. Society members are worried how potential extra traffic through the township would impact on roading infrastructure. However, Holcim has stated a preference for rail transport between the cement works and harbour and would seek to reopen the line to Weston.
The Weston operations were formerly operated by Taylor's Limeworks, a subsidiary of Holcim.
Taylor's Limeworks consolidated their operations at
Makareao (
Dunback
Dunback, formerly Waihemo, is a small town in the Otago region of New Zealand. It is located between Palmerston and Ranfurly on Highway 85. It has a population of about 200 people. Most of these people live in the rural areas near the town.
...
) in 1990 with the opening of a new plant there. The limeworks at Weston were then sold to Parkside Quarries Ltd, who continue to mine lime and Oamaru stone at two sites. If the Weston Cement Works development goes ahead, new lime/tuff quarries will be established at the western edge of Parkside's operations. The cement works will be on land immediately west of the old Taylor's works at Cormacks.
Demographics
Weston covers
and had an estimated population of as of with a population density of people per km
2.
Weston had a population of 1,050 at the
2018 New Zealand census
Eighteen or 18 may refer to:
* 18 (number), the natural number following 17 and preceding 19
* one of the years 18 BC, AD 18, 1918, 2018
Film, television and entertainment
* ''18'' (film), a 1993 Taiwanese experimental film based on the sho ...
, an increase of 66 people (6.7%) since the
2013 census, and an increase of 153 people (17.1%) since the
2006 census
6 (six) is the natural number following 5 and preceding 7. It is a composite number and the smallest perfect number.
In mathematics
Six is the smallest positive integer which is neither a square number nor a prime number; it is the second small ...
. There were 411 households. There were 534 males and 516 females, giving a sex ratio of 1.03 males per female. The median age was 46.0 years (compared with 37.4 years nationally), with 210 people (20.0%) aged under 15 years, 144 (13.7%) aged 15 to 29, 474 (45.1%) aged 30 to 64, and 225 (21.4%) aged 65 or older.
Ethnicities were 95.4% European/Pākehā, 6.9% Māori, 0.6% Pacific peoples, 2.3% Asian, and 1.4% other ethnicities (totals add to more than 100% since people could identify with multiple ethnicities).
The proportion of people born overseas was 8.0%, compared with 27.1% nationally.
Although some people objected to giving their religion, 52.0% had no religion, 37.1% were Christian, 0.3% were Buddhist and 2.0% had other religions.
Of those at least 15 years old, 93 (11.1%) people had a bachelor or higher degree, and 201 (23.9%) people had no formal qualifications. The median income was $34,900, compared with $31,800 nationally. 123 people (14.6%) earned over $70,000 compared to 17.2% nationally. The employment status of those at least 15 was that 423 (50.4%) people were employed full-time, 147 (17.5%) were part-time, and 15 (1.8%) were unemployed.
Leisure and recreation
Weston has some of the largest sporting grounds in the Oamaru region, with the Weston Domain having a full size
cricket
Cricket is a bat-and-ball game played between two teams of eleven players on a field at the centre of which is a pitch with a wicket at each end, each comprising two bails balanced on three stumps. The batting side scores runs by striki ...
oval,
tennis court
A tennis court is the venue where the sport of tennis is played. It is a firm rectangular surface with a low net stretched across the centre. The same surface can be used to play both doubles and singles matches. A variety of surfaces can be u ...
s,
football
Football is a family of team sports that involve, to varying degrees, kicking a ball to score a goal. Unqualified, the word ''football'' normally means the form of football that is the most popular where the word is used. Sports commonly c ...
, and two
rugby union
Rugby union, commonly known simply as rugby, is a close-contact team sport that originated at Rugby School in the first half of the 19th century. One of the two codes of rugby football, it is based on running with the ball in hand. In its m ...
fields, accompanied by a large pavilion and public park/recreation area, and is the home to the Valley Sports Club.
Rockvale Venue Room & Gardens serve the area as a function and wedding venue hire with accommodations in quiet rural surroundings with large formal gardens.
Transport
Weston is connected to
State Highway 1
The following highways are numbered 1.
For roads numbered A1, see list of A1 roads.
For roads numbered B1, see list of B1 roads.
For roads numbered M1, see List of M1 roads.
For roads numbered N1, see list of N1 roads.
For roads numbere ...
south via Whiterocks Road and to
State Highway 83 via Airedale and Horse Gully Road.
Ngapara Branch railway
Weston was the first stop on the defunct
Ngapara Branch railway. Built in 1871 to open up the 64300 hectares (159,000 acres) After closure of the branch in July 1959, the first five km remained as Taylor's Siding, serving Taylor's Limeworks and being renamed "the Waiareka Industrial Line", the line closed in 1997 and the rails were uplifted due to low traffic and deteriorating of the track and sleepers. In August 2006, a proposal was made to re-open the first 4.5 km of the branch through Weston. If the proposed cement works eventuates, either the harbour at
Timaru
Timaru (; mi, Te Tihi-o-Maru) is a port city in the southern Canterbury Region of New Zealand, located southwest of Christchurch and about northeast of Dunedin on the eastern Pacific coast of the South Island. The Timaru urban area is home to ...
or
Port Chalmers
Port Chalmers is a town serving as the main port of the city of Dunedin, New Zealand. Port Chalmers lies ten kilometres inside Otago Harbour, some 15 kilometres northeast of Dunedin's city centre.
History
Early Māori settlement
The origi ...
would be used for shipping purposes. The rail corridor is still owned by
ONTRACK
KiwiRail Holdings Limited is a New Zealand state-owned enterprise responsible for rail operations in New Zealand, and operates inter-island ferries. Trading as KiwiRail and headquartered in Wellington, New Zealand, KiwiRail is the largest rail ...
and the proposal would involve the operation of at least two trains each way daily.
The surviving portion of the land rail corridor between Waiareka Junction and Parkside Quarries currently forms part of the
Alps to Ocean Cycle Trail linking Weston to Oamaru.
Education
Weston School is a full primary catering for years 1 to 8 with a roll of as of The school opened in 1869.
References
{{Authority control
Waitaki District
Populated places in Otago