Former winery to become rehab centre

PLANS ARE under way to resurrect a former Wanganui winery into a church-based rehabilitation centre for male drug addicts and alcoholics leaving prison.
Wanganui Prisoners' Rehabilitation (Pars) manager Steve Treloar said yesterday that even though the centre was still very much in the planning stage they (the Wanganui Bible Chapel, a Brethren group) hoped to have it up and running within two years.
The former winery, part of the Holly Lodge complex in Papaiti Road, has several outbuildings including a former restaurant and some large sheds, he said.
The original historic Holly Lodge homestead was moved. The rehabiliation programe follows Scientology's Narconon programme established by church founder L Ron Hubbard more than 40 years ago for drug addicts in Arizona State Prisons.
Mr Treloar said that even though the 12-step programme was the one most commonly used in New Zealand, research into the Narconon programme showed it has had a remarkable success rate.
"But we will run the programme without the scientology bit," Mr Treloar said. Narconon focused on healthy living and lifestyle choices, he said.
"When patients first arrive, they will go through a deep-detoxification in a sauna," he said. The programme was all about replenishing the body, nurturing it with good food, vitamins and mineral supplements. It was about cleansing all toxins from the body and making a serious lifestyle change.
Although the venture had been given resource consent by the Wanganui District Council, stringent building consent provisions were holding the process up, he said.
"Financially, the building consent requirements would cost around $60,000, and we are trying to raise that money. The building requirements are very, very strict."
Mr Treloar said the Wanganui area had long been overdue for a rehabilitation centre. The last one, the NSAD clinic in Marton, closed several years ago, he said.
There is a centre in Palmerston North and one in Paraparumu, but they both have waiting lists a mile long, he said. The new centre probably wouldn't get Government funding because of how the trust wanted to run it, he said.
Mr Treloar, who has headed Wanganui Pars for 18 years, said he knew first-hand how deeply the drug problem was embedded in the Wangnaui area.
"And we need a centre right here, right now in Wanganui, a place where these men are not forced to leave young families and partners. They can stay here. More than half of the centre's success will be if addicts can stay in their home town and not have to leave and feel alienated."
Mr Treloar said the rising problem of "P" addicts, for example, was alarming.
"A rehab is very much needed here and we will try to do it."