Zoe Moffatt
The Woodend Customer Service Centre will remain open with reduced hours, following community disapproval at the proposed closure.
Macedon Ranges council voted to keep the centre open at its meeting on June 28, with a reduction in hours to noonto 5pm, two days per week, from August 1.
This decision follows 24 community submissions disagreeing with a council recommendation to close the centre, which had low in-person interaction compared to the larger administration centres.
Deputy mayor Jennifer Anderson said council has to take into account everything it does, including its services in the budget, but the reduction in hours is a good solution.
“We really have to examine everything we do including the services, we have to examine it in a thorough way across the entire shire,” Cr Anderson said.
“We’ve listened to the community … the service users were telling us how important to them at the moment this service is and why.
“I know we will continue to monitor it and this is a really good solution … that is evidence based, safety based, practicality, finances, everything has been taken into consideration.
“It really does show the importance of community putting in a submission.”
Cr Mark Ridgeway agreed that reducing the operation hours ensures the needs of the community are still met.
“I want to thank the officers for listening to the community … and coming back with a proposal rather than actually to do away with the Woodend Customer Service Centre,” Cr Ridgeway said.
“That gets around the problem that we were facing, whereby we were getting a lot of reduced usage of the centre but still meets the needs of the community.
“We do know that we’ve got a number of people in Woodend who would really struggle accessing council services with the use of the facility within the township.”
Some of the feedback included that face-to-face interactions are preferred and more effective, the closure of the service would increase distrust in council and harm the town, and travelling to another town for the service is not convenient.
