County cabinet approves toilets plan as public consultation begins

* Denbighshire's cabinet agreed the local toilets strategy this morning.

Denbighshire’s Cabinet has approved a move to put the council’s local toilets strategy out to public consultation starting tomorrow (Wednesday).

In line with the Public Health (Wales) Act 2017 the council has prepared this strategy to outline how it intends to try to meet the public toilet requirements of the county.  

While there’s no legal requirement for any local authority to provide public conveniences, this strategy identifies how the local authority will work towards meeting the need within each community in Denbighshire.  

This could be through direct provision or working with private businesses to make facilities available to the public. 

Denbighshire is facing a period of heavy budget pressures and is looking at alternative ways of providing some services such as public conveniences. 

This has put a question mark over toilets such as the ones in Market Street, Llangollen – uncertainty which has led to a high level of public concern in the town. 

At this morning’s cabinet meeting Paul Jackson, the council’s head of highways and environment services, stressed that no decision had yet been made on the fate of toilets across the county, which would come later in 2025, he said. 

He said the public consultation would be “as full and wide as possible,” last for about two months and aim to engage with as many businesses as possible. 

The council currently offers businesses £500 a year to allow members of the public to use their own toilets where local loos aren’t available. But it is known that take-up of this scheme has been poor. 

County Councillor Rhys Thomas said he believed only one business across the entire county, in Llangollen, had signed up for it and asked whether offering more than £500 might stimulate demand. 

Paul Jackson suggested it would be better to use the results of the consultation to assess interest from businesses before considering the finances. 

Councillor Emrys Wynne said that a few years ago he had been told by a business in Llangollen who had been operating the scheme that the £250 then being paid by the council didn’t cover all the costs such as regular cleaning of their toilets. 

The cabinet was told that all town councils across the county had been consulted on the possibility of cooperating with Denbighshire in running the toilets. While some had been “very welcoming and supportive” others had said “point blank” they wouldn’t be prepared to do so.    

The draft toilets strategy and public consultation on it was unanimously approved.

* Llangollen councillors last month agreed a plan to work together with the county in a bid to save the Market Street toilets, jointly seeking a grant of around £40,000 to upgrade the building and introduce cashless payments. 

Councillors agreed to take £4,000 from their reserves to make the 10% contribution towards the facelift bill.