Dunedin iwi-led health centre gets green light

7:27 pm on 5 October 2016

The first iwi-led health centre planned for South Dunedin has won resource consent.

The project called Te Kaika - or the Village - will be a health hub combining low-cost GP, physiotherapy and pharmacy clinics with a Māori health provider and other service agencies at the former Caversham Primary School.

The project group applied for the consent in August.

The Dunedin City Council has granted the project consent on a non-notified basis, after all affected neighbours agreed to the project.

Te Kaika co-founder Donna Matahaere-Atariki said it was an amazing feeling to get approval, and a great relief.

"Of course, when we started off with this, we just wanted to build a service that was closer in a community that provided low cost access to people. We had no idea around things like resource consent, building consent, compliance, all those kinds of things. So we've learned heaps going through this process."

Ms Matahaere-Atariki said the next step was to get building consents for fitting out the former school, ready for opening by next April.