A COUNTRY house centre to help injured police officers recover in mind and body is undergoing a major expansion.

St Michael’s Lodge in Langho is set to triple in size from nine to 30 bedrooms with ‘therapeutic’ gardens, the latest physiotherapy equipment and a new counselling service.

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The multi-million pound development, which opened in 2010, is owned by the North West Police Benevolent Fund, and paid for out of a levy of a few pounds a month on the wages of officers who join it.

Yesterday it took delivery of two electro-muscular rehabilitation devices to speed up the recovery of broken bones and other injuries that cause muscle wastage.

The £1,500 to buy the machines was raised by former Greater Manchester Police Constable Andrea Brown, who was badly beaten up while sectioning a patient near Wigan and has been a user of the centre.

They will be used by a team of two physiotherapists led by Christine Holmes, who said: “They will make a huge difference to recovery times.”

In addition, the centre has recently employed two counsellors to help officers recover from the traumas involved in their jobs.

The centre, which has a gymnasium and physiotherapy treatment room, is used by retired and injured officers who are fund members from Lancashire, Cheshire, Greater Manchester, Merseyside and Cumbria police forces.

The imposing early 20th-century lodge was taken over by the charity in 2008, having been the village primary school between 1911 and 1983 before being converted into the Petre Country House Hotel in 1990.

Manager Ged Wright said: “ It is open to any member, serving or retired, who needs our help.”

Superintendent Julian Platt of Lancashire Police’s East Division said: “This is an excellent facility which helps get serving officers back to work and retired ones back to health.”