It's full steam ahead for Ability Network's new facility "Ability Farm", with a couple of special guests paying a visit to check out the next stage of the plans.
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Clients, staff and board members enjoyed a visit from Member for Riverina, Michael McCormack and Minister for Regional Health, Dr David Gillespie MP last Tuesday.
The 'Farm', located in West Cowra, is set to be a fully inclusive facility that will provide a range of activities for clients, inspired by similar sites in places like Wagga Wagga.
Ability Network board member Jim Morgan said stage one of the plans was nearly complete.
"We're in the current short-term accommodation home, it's going to be continued to be used as is," he said.
"Stage one was getting this semi fit for purpose, there's still some work to do.
"Stage two, we're just in the process now of working out, from a development application perspective, exactly what we can and can't do."
Moving forward, Mr Morgan said the next major project with be the construction of a community hub.
"That's where we are going to have the office spaces for the Network as well as kitchens, a few rooms so we can run general skill development and bits and pieces like that," he said.
"From there, we will then look at doing the proposed group home, perhaps we will even try and get a second one there so there's more structured accommodation."
Following that, there are plans for more activity spaces such as a greenhouse, nursery, outdoor exercise areas, gardens and vegetable patches.
A cafe and hyrdrotherapy are also among the items on the wishlist.
"It's realistically probably a five to seven year project for it to be completely what we want it to be," Mr Morgan said.
"Getting this set up first was stage one and we will just tick the boxes."
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