New Westminster City Hall will continue to offer extended hours as a way of enhancing customer service.
The city began offering a pilot project back in March to gauge support of extended hours. Starting Jan. 1, the new hours of service will permanently be 8 a.m. to 7 p.m. on Mondays and 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. Tuesdays to Fridays.
“Based on the feedback we received from residents and businesses, there was strong support for the initiative, and as a result, the extended hours of service at city hall will continue,” Mayor Jonathan Cote said in a press release. “We found that by opening earlier and closing later provides enhanced and expanded customer service by offering the public more flexibility to conduct their business with city hall.”
Prior to the pilot project, city hall was open 8:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. and staff often saw people waiting at the doors when they arrived at city hall. The city hoped that extending the hours would enable residents to access services such as business licensing, planning, plumbing and building permits and finance.
Joan Burgess, the city’s director of human resources, told the Record earlier this year that New Westminster many neighbouring municipalities have some kind of extended and/or flexible work arrangements.
