Customer services base relocating from Lowestoft town centre

East Suffolk Council's face-to-face customer services facility at the Marina Centre in Lowestoft is set to close next Thursday.

East Suffolk Council headquarters in Lowestoft. Picture: Newsquest (Image: Newsquest)

From the following Monday, the council’s customer services reception will be open five days a week at Riverside - as is it based temporarily within East Suffolk's offices on Canning Road.

This temporary move comes ahead of the services permanently moving in December - less than half-a-mile away to Lowestoft Library.

Lowestoft Library. Picture: Mick Howes (Image: Mick Howes) The council's customer services team has operated out of the Marina Centre since 2009.

In May this year East Suffolk's cabinet agreed to relocate the facility as part of plans to transform the building and former Battery Green multi-storey car park into a Cultural Quarter.

The £165,000 cost of the relocation is being funded through reserves.

Suffolk County Council's Youth Justice and Leaving Care teams will also be moved from the Marina, to be based at Riverside from the following Monday.

To ensure a customer services presence remains in the town centre, a limited service will run at Lowestoft Library on Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays, from Tuesday, September 24.

Cllr Paul Ashton. Picture: East Suffolk Council (Image: East Suffolk Council)

Cllr Paul Ashton, an East Suffolk cabinet member, said: "We will be offering an enhanced service at Riverside, with the customer services desk open between 9am and 5pm every weekday, compared to the current three day opening at the Marina Centre.

"The smaller service at the library will also be available for three days each week and this arrangement will continue until we are able to move fully into the library, which is scheduled to take place by the end of the year."