Contact Wrexham To Trial Reduced Opening Hours

The opening hours at the ‘Contact Wrexham’ centre in town are to be reduced in a new pilot scheme. 

Contact Wrexham, which is located on Lord Street, offers a face to face advice / help facility on Council services, covering subjects such as Housing Benefits, Council Tax and Blue Badges.

The recommendation to reduce opening hours comes as a result of the ongoing ‘reshaping’ of Council services and the current hours ‘stretches existing resources and reduces the availability of staff at peak times’.

However under the new pilot scheme, the facility would open between 9am and 4:30pm on weekdays, excluding Thursdays when the centre would open 10:30am – 5:30pm.

Speaking about the proposed reduction in hours, Lead Member for Policy, Finance, Performance and Governance, Councillor Malcolm King said: “We have found that the existing opening hours stretch the staff. We have discovered we already open more hours than other Councils that we looked at.

“We feel it would be much better to open slightly later and close slightly later, but close slightly later on Thursday to coincide with later opening hours of shops and banks. This will use centre to maximum effect so we can use the face to face services and concentrate resources where they are most needed.”

The new opening hours will begin as pilot phase that will last for six months from September. The scheme will then be reviewed and reported back to the Board next year.

Councillor Mark Pritchard said: “With reference to the recommendations, I’m not convinced with regards to the Thursday, but it is a pilot scheme. These are extremely difficult times we are in. see how the pilot scheme goes. don’t think we need to open at 4:30 everyday.

However concerns were raised about the importance of the Contact Wrexham facility and the impact reducing the opening hours may have in the current economical climate.

Councillor David A Bithell said: “This is a challenging time in austerity measures and I have a little bit of concern. When Contact Wrexham was opened it was all singing and dancing; the focus of the last two to three years has been on Contact Wrexham.

“There are lots of proposed cuts to come, we as a Council need to be front facing. Lord Street is front facing. People may need to go there a lot more in the next few years than they may do now and I’m not sure at this moment in time, it’s a positive step.”

Questions were also raised about Contact Wrexham’s phone services, however the meeting was told the service would remain as normal; with the primary changes being made to the face to face services.

Changes would also be made to the self service system that is offered at the facility, as the machines cannot be sealed off separately. However other options such as putting the systems into libraries are being looked into.

The recommendations were passed unanimously by the Board and are expected to be implemented in the next few months.