The work at the council’s Guyton St building starts on December 1 and will take three weeks.
In March, Langford told the council’s risk and assurance committee that abuse was one of the hardest council risks to control and tackle.
“So much of it depends on the behaviour of individuals who walk through the door.”
He said one incident involved a man leaning across a desk and brushing the hair out of a staff member’s face.
“That is not aggressive, but it’s certainly unwanted and inappropriate.”
The Chronicle reported in May that a mock Molotov cocktail had been left at the main council building and there had been several incidents involving serious threats, including verbal threats of violence.
A report from health, safety and wellbeing manager Olivia McQuillan said there had been 38 incidents of threatening behaviour towards council staff in the 2024/25 financial year, up from 27 in 2023/24.
There were 13 police reports and five trespasses issued, compared to eight and three respectively in 2023/24.
The report covers all council facilities, but McQuillan told the council’s risk and assurance committee in August that customer service staff at 101 Guyton St “do gain a significant amount of those abuse events”.
“Here is where they [the public] are going to come to complain. They’re not necessarily going to go to the Splash Centre.”
The council spent $500,000 on a revamp of the customer services area in 2019.
At the time, then chief executive Kym Fell said there would be a different customer experience, with kiosks replacing “a massive barrier desk with wire”.
Dutton said councils around the country had experienced rising safety concerns for their staff, and Whanganui was no different.
“We want people to feel safe in this area, which is the hub of community interactions with the council.
“Over the last eight months, we have been working towards a new layout which will improve the service delivery experience for our community.”
She said “noisy construction work” was scheduled for after hours.
“The customer services team enjoys and appreciates their interaction with the community – so while the layout of the area will be a little different, the service from the team won’t change."
Mike Tweed is a multimedia journalist at the Whanganui Chronicle. Since starting in March 2020, he has dabbled in everything from sport to music. At present his focus is local government, primarily Whanganui District Council.
