Glenn Rappensberg is CEO of Alexandrina Council, on South Australia’s Fleurieu Peninsula. Known for its environment, heritage and agriculture, it is one of the state’s fastest-growing regions.

One of our challenges during the pandemic has been keeping in contact with older, isolated and vulnerable residents across our 10 townships and many small villages and linking them to support they may never have needed in the past.

To do this, we repurposed our main council phone number as a Community Hotline and empowered customer experience officers to triage calls into three groups: residents seeking general information; customers already accessing our community services; and an emerging group of ratepayers who, due to COVID-19, needed urgent short-term help for the very first time. That has worked well.

We also set up a Business Hotline answered by our growth department and developed a business support package including a rent-free period for council tenants, shorter payment terms for suppliers and waiving some fees/charges. Other measures included rate relief, a recovery-ready tourism campaign, stimulus grants and digital strategies to help businesses get online. We launched an Open for Business directory allowing local firms that pivoted to provide online or home delivery services – particularly our food and wine industry – to let residents know they were still trading. That was produced online and in hardcopy and promoted across the municipality.

Alexandrina is collaborating with neighbouring councils to ensure public messages around visitation, social distancing and virus transmission concerns, etc. are consistent across the Fleurieu Peninsula. Now restrictions are easing, the message from all three local councils is that we are back welcoming visitors again, but we encourage people to respect social distancing and understand there may be some limitations to usual activities as we move through the stages of reopening.

Glenn Rappensberg
Chief Executive Officer
Alexandrina Council