MORNINGTON Peninsula Shire will discontinue customer service operations at Somerville Library, Dromana Visitor Information Centre, Sorrento Community Centre, and Red Hill Village Shopping Centre.
At the 27 October council meeting, councillors voted to close the Tier 3 “Your Local Connection Points” model, which was established in 2023.
A shire review found customer demand at the four locations has continued to decline, and the current model is not financially sustainable long-term.
Councillors also approved a three-month trial of extended operating hours at Hastings Customer Service Centre from 9am to 4:30pm, Monday to Friday.
Cr Paul Pingiaro, who moved the motion, said good customer service is about how effectively, excessively, and efficiently the shire serves the community.
“I think the figures here tell a pretty compelling story,” said Pingiaro.
“Across our four local connection points, customer visits declined from 817 in 2024/25 to 465 in 2025/26.”
Pingiaro said that’s an average of 1.8 customer visits per operating day at an annual operating cost of around $217,000.
“More importantly, that equates to approximately $467 per customer visit, compared with around $70 at our established Mornington and Rosebud service centres,” said Pingiaro.
“At individual locations, the costs are even higher at approximately $1062 per visit at Sorrento and $2236 at Red Hill.”
Pingiaro said as councillors, they have an obligation to continually understand and review services, challenge inefficiencies, and ensure they are delivering value for ratepayers.
“That doesn’t mean compromising customer service; in fact, I believe it means quite the opposite,” said Pingiaro.
“This recommendation also provides the opportunity to redirect approximately $158,000 annually to improving customer service, including better digital access, telephone support, and more responsive service delivery.”
Pingiaro said the extension in hours at the Hastings centre is a practical improvement for Western Port communities.
“Financial sustainability and excellent customer service are not competing objectives; if they are done properly, they should go hand in hand,” said Pingiaro.
“This is about adapting to how our community actually accesses council services while ensuring we remain responsive, accessible, and financially responsible.”
Cr Cam Williams said the customer service centres were a great idea, but if they aren’t utilised, they won’t be maintained.
“There hasn’t been any community consultation formally as yet because the engagement of the service is informed by the operational data, which unfortunately hasn’t been in favour and where I like the idea and you do have to weigh up the usage versus the cost as well,” said Williams.
“In my opinion, this one doesn’t quite weigh up for the cost to keep going, but I am enticed by the idea of extending hours at Hastings… if that is successful, then maybe we could revisit looking at the other Tier 3 locations with greater hours available for the public to have the usage there.”
Cr Kate Roper clarified Somerville Library will not be closing, only the connection point inside the library.
“I was a very strong supporter of this, and I was at the opening of Somerville, Dromana and Red Hill centres, so it’s pretty disappointing for me that the uptake hasn’t been as good as we wanted,” said Roper.
“I also acknowledge we’ve got to be financially responsible for ratepayer money and those figures that Cr Pingiaro talked about… it’s just not financially viable.”
She said no one will lose their job and will instead be deployed elsewhere.
Cr David Gill and Cr Max Patton were the only councillors to vote against the motion.
Gill said it is a question of why the centres are not being used.
“One of the answers is there was no comms plan,” said Gill.
“We have a situation where we trial having our services delivered to where people are in the more remote areas of the shire, and we didn’t have a comms plan. I think it’s a case of sometimes we know the cost of everything; we don’t know the real value.”
Council officers confirmed there was a communications plan that was rolled out over a three- to six-month period but noted they know it doesn’t reach everyone.
Patton said it is important to note looking at cost per visit is only one dimension of the work the employees are undertaking.
“It’s not as if they’re just waiting there for people to walk in; they’re actually undertaking web inquiries and doing work, so I think it’s just a matter of them doing work from a different location and being available at the time when customers walk in,” said Patton.
Various councillors mentioned potentially using a library van to deliver mobile customer service connection points, which Patton said he was in support of.
“I do think there might be a different model that would work… potentially looking at the library van and how that might factor into more of some of our rural locations,” said Patton.
Pingiaro said it’s not an easy thing to close a customer service centre down, but if they were to continue with the current arrangements, it would be a $267,000 commitment without resolving any identified issues.
“This does allow for other opportunities, and that opportunity is actually getting our primary office in Hastings open, and I think that’s a great outcome for our residents of Western Port who have often, as we hear, suffered the inability to go into offices and lacked that support,” said Pingiaro.
“Our responsibility is not to preserve every existing service model; it is to deliver the best possible service for our community while responsibly managing the resources entrusted to us.”
First published in the Mornington News – 3 November 2026
