More than 1,000 people in and around St Albans have signed a petition ahead of proposed public toilet closures.
St Albans City & District Council are planning to close toilets at Abbey View Athletic Track in Verulamium Park, Drovers Way Car Park, Civic Centre Car Park, and the Bowling Green in Clarence Park.
Toilets in the parishes—Wheathampstead, London Colney, Park Street, Quadrant, and Redbourn—will keep only their disabled toilets, which will be refurbished and made available for anybody to use.
The council has warned that the authority’s 16 public toilets are in need of “repairs, maintenance and upgrading” and that without refurbishment, they will be at risk of closure.
The refurbishment will cost around £220,000, while the closures are expected to save the council £42,600 a year.
Anne Howie presented the petition to the council’s public realm committee at a meeting on Thursday (June 12).
She said she had decided to launch the petition after the issue was brought to her attention in a story written by the Local Democracy Reporting Service.
She said: “I’m here to hopefully impress on you how important public loos are to all age groups and genders.
“I know this is being presented as a reorganisation and refurbishment rather than a closure, but as we will be losing at least four loos, I think it is accurate to refer to a closure of facilities.
“One loo is not enough for a range of reasons.
“We are an ageing population.
“Older people value knowing a loo is not far away. The loo leash can tie some people to their homes.
“Loss of loos also affects mums with children, menstruating women and pregnant women who all may need access to loos urgently.
“Then there is the issue with disability. The one thing we do not want to lose is an accessible toilet, but on its own it’s not enough.
“More than one loo is necessary because there may be times when the loo is occupied for a considerable period of time.”
Ms Howie also warned that the changes could lead to “urination and defecation” in public spaces” and to a loss of business for businesses where customers may use the nearby public loos.
Her petition called for the council to carry out “a full cost/benefit analysis” of changes to the public toilets.
Helen Campbell (LD, Bernards Heath), the committee chair, said it was a “very important issue.”
“This committee and I think the council as a whole … want to provide good, quality, pleasant toilets.”
She said the council’s plans would “bring about improvements and safeguarding and futureproofing the provision for all.”
Stuart Fitzsimmons, the council’s assistant director responsible for public toilets, said: “The bottom line with the toilets is they are in a poor state of repair.
“You wouldn’t want to use it unless you had to use it.
“Unfortunately, that is the condition of the toilets across the district.
“They’re just so old and tired, they need to be refreshed.
“We don’t have the budget to keep them all open, and even if we managed to secure external funding to refurbish them all, we don’t have the budget to keep them clean and maintain them moving forward.
“What we’re trying to do is ensure that we keep a provision for people who have health conditions, who have got children, who are caught short, and there’s nothing else.
“That’s why we’re keeping them in the villages.
“We understand that by having only one unit, we increase the chances somebody is going to have to wait.
“But we’ve taken the view that somebody having to wait for a toilet that is there is better than somebody having to wait for a toilet that isn’t there, and we’re in real danger of not having these facilities.”
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He said the city and district council is “in discussions” with parish councils. It has been suggested that ownership of the toilets could be transferred to the parish councils, who may have a “greater ability” to do more with them.
Matt Fisher (Grn, Clarence) suggested there should be “some creative thinking” from the council around toilet maintenance.
He said: “That may be by way of sponsorship, other pools of money, crowdfunding. All of these are not ideal, but they are ways in which perhaps to save the asset.”
But Joanna Meaden (LD, Clarence) said the sponsorship idea was “questionable”.
“Whatever the solutions are, they’ve got to be sustainable,” she said.
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