County council to consider its local toilets strategy next week

A report will go to Denbighshire’s Cabinet on Tuesday December 17 about Denbighshire’s Local Toilets Strategy. 

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.

 

The Local Toilets Strategy has been developed following a full public consultation earlier this year on the interim needs assessment, which resulted in 1,400 responses.

The purpose of this assessment was to review the needs of the local population, including changing facilities for babies and changing places facilities for disabled people. 

The overall aim of the strategy is to try to meet the identified need for provision of public toilets in Denbighshire without exceeding the current budget for the service.

 

Denbighshire, like many local authorities, is facing a period of significant and continued budget pressures. In order to set a balanced budget for 2024/25, the council says it is looking at alternative ways of providing some services such as public conveniences.

 

Councillor Barry Mellor, Lead Member for Environment and Transport, said: “As yet, no decision has been made about closing public conveniences in Denbighshire and this strategy is about identifying where there is a need for toilets and how to try and meet this identified need.

 

“We understand that public conveniences are highly valued assets by certain parts of the community. However, the fact remains that the provision of public conveniences is not a statutory duty, and we do not now have a big enough budget to enable us to keep delivering services in the same way that we have always delivered them in the past.

 

“Officers have already identified the needs of the local population through the Interim Needs Assessment consultation, and they are looking for alternative ways to deliver the service in line with the budget, such as the Community Toilet Scheme.”

 

If the report is agreed upon in Cabinet, there will be a public consultation on this strategy starting on December 18.

 

You can view the papers on:

http://mgintranet/ieListDocuments.aspx?CId=281&MId=6895&LLL=0

* Town councillors last month approved a plan to work together with the county council in a bid to save Llangollen's under-threat public toilets. 

A report from town clerk Gareth Thomas said: “The county council have indicated that if they can convert the existing toilets on Market Street to cashless operation and variable summer and winter opening times then this will reduce cost which will allow for the continued provision of the service.

“However, to facilitate this capital works are required to the building and the county council is applying to the Brilliant Basics Fund which assists in the provision of small-scale tourism infrastructure improvements across Wales and is open to local authorities and national park authorities.

“Total grant available is £300,000 with a maximum intervention rate of 80%. There is no minimum grant amount.

“The estimated cost of the works to upgrade the toilet facilities to allow for cashless payment is in the region of £40,000.

“During discussions with the county council, it was clear that a joint application would be looked upon more favourably and therefore it is proposed that the town council would contribute to the match funding requirement to a maximum of 10% and provision has made in the asset specific reserve to facilitate such a contribution in 2025-26.”

Town councillors agreed to take £4,000 from their reserves to make the 10% contribution towards the £40,000.