Dr Rob Dewhurst's family first settled in the New England regional town of Armidale, NSW in 1888. Four generations of Dewhursts have produced a coachbuilder, train driver, dental technician and finally a dentist, Rob.
To stay and succeed in Armidale takes pioneering perseverance and tenacity. Each step has to be carefully considered and planned. So when the size and useability of his practice became a concern, Dr Dewhurst contacted Levitch Design Associates (LDA) in 2003 to see what could be done.
"My practice was in our old family home close to the town centre, but it no longer could practically be expanded any further," he said. "The surgeries were either too big or too small. We had a large block with plenty of parking, but to demolish and rebuild would put us out of action for too long. Buying a vacant block and building a new practice thus seemed the best possibility."
Dr Dewhurst wanted to talk to Anne Levitch about his ideas for the layout of a new practice and he wanted to talk to Dr Genna Levitch about how to establish a realistic budget for a commercial project.
They both came to Armidale and investigated a number of sites. Anne used her Town Planning and Design knowledge to establish what was architecturally feasible, while Genna, with 25 years of experience practising dentistry, crunched the numbers on the financial feasibility.
Unfortunately, none of the sites lived up to Dr Dewhurst's expectations, and because of this, he was not prepared to act until a suitable site became available.
Setbacks then occurred which would be familiar to country dentists - hygienists left due to their husband's employment, took maternity leave, associate dentists didn't stay and younger staff left due to marriage and looking for further opportunities.
Armidale does, however, have some secret strengths. It has its own University (University of New England), its own airport, it's exactly midway between Sydney and Brisbane and it has a huge dam and five well established secondary schools. That's correct, a huge dam! Suddenly that's a big asset when elsewhere there are level-4 water restrictions.
Water intensive manufacturing businesses have moved there to take advantage of this. Locals moved from surrounding towns since (this is factual) mum can water her garden all summer and dad can wash his car whenever he wants to. Opposing the general trend, the town continued to grow.
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