Waipā District Council’s Te Awamutu office gets increased safety measures after rise in threats

The Waipā District Council office in Bank St, Te Awamutu. The council says there has been a rising number of reports of customers behaving aggressively towards staff.

Improved security is being introduced at Waipā District Council’s Te Awamutu office to ensure the health and safety of staff.

The work to replace the security grille in the customer support area started this week and follows rising numbers of threats from the public and three lockdowns in 18 months. Reception areas have also been fitted with duress alarms.

Customer and community services group manager Sally Sheedy said there had been a rising number of reports of customers behaving aggressively towards staff.

“We have had phone calls that have been aggressive and threatening at the same time and have resulted in the police being called in to deal with the serious threats that we have received.”

She said Waipā District Council’s Te Awamutu office had seen a rising number of instances where people have been acting aggressively in person, on the phone or via social media posts.

“It is a reflection in the community of some frustration or just what is happening in life for these individuals at the moment.”

Ensuring the health and safety of staff was paramount and the new measures would help ensure council offices were kept secure.

“Our No.1 priority for staff is that they feel safe and have a healthy work environment. Everyone has the right to feel safe at work; from that perspective, the rise in this behaviour starts to take a toll in this role.”

The district council was implementing several measures and upgrading the customer service support space in the Te Awamutu office.

“The current grille could no longer be serviced or repaired, so it needed to be replaced. While construction is underway, the reception area will be temporarily relocated to the left of the current area, providing a smaller but fully functional customer support space.”

During construction, customer support staff would continue to assist with all inquiries, payments, and services, maintaining the council’s commitment to delivering these core services to the community.

The project follows on from similar upgrades to the Cambridge customer support office in 2021 and was expected to be complete by the end of September.

There would also be increased training for those types of occurrences and security systems installed.

“We are here to work with the community and support them. While there may be some things that the Waipā District Council does that the community may not agree with, it is important to remember that when you are working with the council you are also dealing with someone’s family member. We are people who work and live in the community, we just ask people to be considerate and treat us like you would a member of your family,” Sheedy said.

After-hours room bookings for council committee rooms and chambers would not be available until the work was complete.

Many council services can be done online by going to waipadc.govt.nz/do-it-online. Its call centre can be reached 24/7 by calling 0800 WAIPADC (924 723).