If walls could talk: Demolition begins on Springhill Residential Addiction Centre

As demolition begins, asbestos sheets are removed from Springhill residential addiction centre, Napier. Photo / Warren Buckland

Demolition of the Springhill Residential Addiction Centre in Napier has begun as the final and third stage of a significant redevelopment begins.

The Hawke's Bay Addiction Centre Trust leases the premises to the Hawke's Bay District Health Board, which has used it as an addiction and rehabilitation centre for nearly 40 years.

The centre is a 15-bed facility for rehabilitation of people recovering from alcohol and drug dependence, and the programme is provided and staffed by the Hawke's Bay District Health Board.

Trust Chairman Phil Ryan said they wanted to "create an asset which will serve the people of Hawke's Bay for decades to come".

Ryan said the DHB had renewed the lease for 10 years.

"It's a very important private and public partnership," he said.

"It's one of the most significant assets for the treatment of addiction."

Trustee Erica Toomey, and Tim Bevin outside the old building in 2020. Photo / Warren Buckland

The space will be used for a new building to house a kitchen, lounge and dining room. It will be called the vocational wing.

The buildings are expected to be completed in 2022, he said.

The build was delayed because of Covid lockdowns and the discovery of asbestos, removal of which was long and costly.

"We have received community support to enable us to rebuild the vocational facility.

"The majority of the funding is from Royston Trust and Williams family."

Historian and writer Elizabeth Pishief, who is planning a book on the history of the Springhill, said that the area of land was reclaimed between 1900 and 1908.

By 1916 it was owned by teacher and father-of-seven Edward Varley Hudson.

It had several owners before it was sold in 1942 to the Salvation Army.

That year it became the new location of Bethany Maternity Home, then in, 1980, it became Springhill Addiction Centre.

"During the time Bethany operated in Morris St over 6500 patients, many of them single mothers, passed through its doors," Pishief said.

Tim Bevin, currently a senior medical adviser in mental health and addiction services and has been the attending doctor at Springhill since 1984.

He also became a trustee in the '90s.

As a doctor, he said it was a highlight seeing people succeed and start to do very well after they had been doing poorly.

As a trustee, he said securing the future of the trust and going through each stage of the development were highlights.