By Sue Newman   February 4, 2012

When the sale of Ashburton’s Mackenzie Centre is confirmed later this month, its use will change from one health support group to another.

The centre, for almost 30 years owned and occupied by the Crippled Children’s Society and later CCS Disability Action, is under contract to the Advance Ashburton Community Foundation and if that sale is confirmed, it will become the new home for the Ashburton branch of the Cancer Society.
Advance Ashburton chair, Neil Sinclair said the foundation had bought the centre with the bulk of funds supplied by two major community charitable groups. The sale will be confirmed on February 17.
While the Cancer Society will find itself with a new home, today’s users of the Mackenzie Centre will find themselves out in the cold when the building changes hands. Worst affected is the Ashburton Community Group whose members are adults with physical or mental disabilities. This group meets several times each week at the centre, which has been equipped to meet group members’ specific needs.
Also looking for a new home are the Assembly of God and the Faith Outreach Centre.
The Mackenzie Centre was built by CCS on land that was occupied by Ashburton’s first police station. It opened in the early 1980s.
Don Church was chairman of Ashburton’s branch of CCS at that time. While the branch had some funds of its own, the Mackenzie Charitable Foundation provided the final $25,000 needed for the project. Over the years CCS changed its focus and direction and had little use for the centre.
It offered to sell the building to the Mackenzie Foundation (of which Mr Church is a trustee) about two years ago, but the foundation’s trustees decided their business was making grants, not buying buildings, he said.
“We would have loved to have preserved this as a community resource but in terms of our trust charter, buying a building was right on the edge. To that end, we worked hard with CCS Disability to at least get them to offer it to someone in Ashburton.”
Initially the Cancer Society considered buying the centre, but it could not raise enough money. Advance Ashburton stepped in, bringing with it pledges from two community funders and a deal was achieved that made good community sense, Mr Church said.
The last and most regular users, with links to the building’s original use, the Ashburton Community Group, will lose its base when the centre changes hands. The Mackenzie foundation has supported the group for several years with an annual grant and Mr Church said that support would continue.
He’s not discounting the group making a return to the Mona Square site in the future. Land to one side of the centre could be made available for a facility to be built to cater for this group and other community support groups, Mr Church said.