"Just a real little community hub"

Castlecliff and Gonville residents barely need to venture into the centre of Wanganui because Gonville Shopping Centre has a small supermarket, health centre, library, two ATMs, post shop, cycle and mower shop, pharmacies, hairdresser, bar and TAB. Put all those businesses together and you get a real community hub, the manager of one of them says.

Two o'clock on a Tuesday afternoon and cars are pulling into the Gonville Shopping Centre carpark, delivery trucks driving to its rear and people sitting at a table outside the library.

A regular stream of people are heading through the doctors' surgery and pharmacy and a convivial group is sitting in the sunshine outside Scooter's Sports Bar.

Gonville Shopping Centre is in full swing.

"It's just a real little community hub," said Barbara Corner, the clinical services manager at Gonville Health.

Gonville Health opened in June 2009, now has three GPs and has been a welcome addition to services available at the shopping centre.

The clinic was started by Whanganui Regional Primary Health Organisation (WRPHO), and the PHO purchased the part of the building that it occupies in November last year.

Mrs Corner is looking for a fourth doctor for it, and said the practice is one of only two in Wanganui with the capacity to take on new patients.

It already has about 6200, and has room to keep expanding.

As well as the current three doctors, it employs five people to work at reception and administration, and runs clinics for visiting midwives, hearing testers, counsellors, social workers and Winz staff members reviewing how clients' health can be improved to allow them to go back to work.

Last year the PHO also hosted 38 people doing their schooling by correspondence, and its Community Room hosts meetings, tai chi and line dancing.

Gonville Health is nonprofit, with the money patients pay and the Government subsidies going into paying wages and improving the business.

Consultations are priced lower than most, and it also offers free health initiatives to people who qualify.

When Yan Lin finished university and returned to Wanganui three years ago he put his 10 years' experience at Polson St Foodmarket to good use in the Gonville Shopping Centre.

He bought the Abbott St Dairy, and when a fruit and vegetable seller left the shop next door he bought that building and turned it into Gonville Lunchbar.

He said the sandwiches it sold were made there, but most of the pies and cakes were bought in, though he hoped to have more baking done on the premises eventually, and a bigger variety of products.

The dairy is open seven days a week, and the lunchbar is open on weekdays and Saturday mornings.

It's going well, and Mr Lin is looking forward to the year ahead.

He has five staff, three full-time and two part-time.

At the dairy milk, bread, pies, confectionery and cigarettes are the big sellers, and he aims to keep his prices competitive.

"It's quite competitive out in Gonville."

He even discounts his cigarette prices, which he said cut down on profit but pleased the customers.

It re-opened only seven months ago but the owner of Gonville's bar says it already has a real good clientele and a keen social club.

Mark Wheeler's nickname is Scooter because he used to ride a pink scooter to work. He's had 28 years' involvement with the region's hotels and opened Scooter's Sports Bar last winter.

"I was worried because it was a rotten time, but it's going well," he said.

He's aiming at hosting people who are 30 and over.

During the winter the bar was doing 10 to 15 steak meals on weekend nights, and many of the patrons buy old fashioned quart bottles for their beer.

"It's better value," Mr Wheeler said.

The bar's social club has just been started.

"I've only advertised the last two to three weeks and so far I've got about 30 paid up members."

The club is due to host its first visitors, from Taranaki, soon.

The little bar in a former shop space sells vouchers for social betting, and screens display the results of races. Mainstream betting is available next door at the TAB.

The bar is a seven day a week, 12 hour a day business. Mr Wheeler's father, Lyndsay "Spook" Wheeler opens up for him in the mornings.

The son starts work at 11am, is there until 11 o'clock at night and is applying to stay open still later.

The long hours don't worry him.

"It's something I love doing."

Mr Wheeler said he welcomed Whanganui Police taking a special interest in Gonville.

"We are trying to get a safe and happy Gonville community. It's good to see the police put their heads in every now and again and ask if everything is all right."

Another who loves going to work every day is Leighton Souness, the owner and pharmacist at Gonville Health Pharmacy.

It opened in September 2010 and specialises in medicine, because the medicine field is varied and interesting to Mr Souness "and the resource consent was not for the fluffies".

The pharmacist got his training at CIT in the Hutt Valley, and worked at Wanganui's Wicksteed Pharmacy in the early 1990s.

Then he went to Australia and worked in Perth, but when he and wife Nicola started having children they returned to Wanganui.

Gonville Health Pharmacy is the first business they have owned, and they got a head start by inheriting Brian Foley's repeat prescriptions when Foley's Pharmacy closed in the central city.

Many of Mr Souness's customers are elderly, with chronic conditions and repeat prescriptions. He gets to know them by name and can help them review and manage all their medications.

He will also offer advice on people's short-term health problems.

He's helped full-time in the pharmacy by Carol Kinnerley, his second-in-charge. Also helping are his wife Nicola and mother Sharon.

Zen Lu graduated from Whanganui UCOL seven years ago and has spent much of the last five years baking in his own business. He leases the Abbott St Cake Shop building and said most of what it sold was made there.

He has four staff, with the first starting at 5am.

Mr Lu works close to a 12-hour day, but shares the work behind the counter.