St John’s new base given a blessing
The first stage of Taranaki St John’s new multi-million dollar ambulance base has been completed and is now operational.
A blessing of the Oropuriri Road, Waiwhakaiho, ambulance bay was held yesterday morning and attended by St John staff, architects, sponsors and representatives from construction company Livingstone, which carried out the build.
The service’s ambulances and first responder vehicle are now based at the $3.5 million hub, which will eventually be a onestop shop for the organisation’s other operations, including medical alarms, first aid training, administrative support as well as St John Community Services.
Station manager Megan Stewart, who took on additional work to help with designing, planning and making spaces functional, said she felt pretty humbled to see the finished product.
‘‘It’s awesome. We have got a facility that will see us well into the future,’’ the ultra-distance marathon runner and LandSAR volunteer said.
District operations manager
Stuart Cockburn said the new base was fantastic and had been designed for the future.
‘‘We are very lucky and very privileged,’’ Cockburn said.
‘‘It will be a massive difference for our team compared to what they have been in.’’
The second stage of the build was expected to be finished by the end of February and Cockburn said it would be good to have everybody in one place.
St John is a charity and is not eligible for capital funding from the Crown, so it had to fundraise to cover the cost of the project.
Cockburn said the service was grateful for the support it had received from sponsors, including a significant contribution from Todd Energy.
However, they still needed to raise $1.5m and he encouraged the community to get behind the project.
Area committee chairman Corie Haddock said it was nice to have the doors open.
‘‘It’s the coming together of as whole lot of hard work by a lot of people,’’ Haddock said.
Todd Energy general manager people and community Jane Snowden said the company was proud to be able to support St John as it continued to meet the growing needs of the wider community.