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After living a nomadic existence without a base in Mangawhai, the St John ambulance service will finally have its own home in May.
The new $700,000 station comes after five years of planning and fundraising. It will have two ambulance bays, a training room, accommodation and living quarters with a full kitchen and bathroom, a library and office.
The 367m2 building, on 2500m2 land in the Mangawhai Community Park on Molesworth Drive, is in stark contrast to what they are used to.
“It’s amazing just having a place to call our own. We won’t know ourselves. We are absolutely thrilled and the community will benefit hugely from this,” says station manager Kay Carey.
After sharing with the Mangawhai Volunteer Fire Brigade in Wood Street they were forced to move out of the top floor of the station in 2013 when it was deemed unsafe.
They then shared a portable building at the back of the fire station with the brigade. Their equipment was stored in a small cupboard inside the station. The ambulance was parked in the home driveway of whoever was on duty.
Kay says the new station was urgently needed for their current service, but it is also designed for future growth. It is getting busier each year, with about 60 callouts over summer.
They hope having visibility in the community and the space to train will help attract more volunteers. They currently have 14 volunteers, but need about 50 if they want to provide a full time service in the future.
They also hope the accommodation will attract ambulance officers from other stations during weekends and busy periods in the summer holidays.
St John district operations manager Tony Devanney says they are building for the future population expansion in Mangawhai and Bream Bay.
“It is exciting to finally see it come to fruition. It has been a long road to get to this point with a number of different people involved along the way,” says Tony.
The money was raised from the Mangawhai St John Opportunity Shop in the past five years. Further funds have come from the Bream Bay St John Area Committee, which also serves the Mangawhai area.
“It is through the generosity of these dedicated volunteers, as well as local organisations that has made this project possible.”
The new station is due to open in mid-May. In the next few years the Mangawhai Volunteer Fire Service plan to be neighbours again and build a new station next door to create an emergency service prescient at the Mangawhai Community Park.
