Cllr Andrew Bispham did suggest (only half jokingly I think) that the FOMMP could buy the toilets for £5 during our meeting on 14 February. We rejected this idea but if you think it’s a reasonable task to expect a “Friends of” volunteer group to carry out then please come along to our next task day as we could do with a few more like you
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The sum being offered to local shops / pubs etc to make their facilities available as Community Toilets is £600 a year. This is probably enough for a business (like a pub) that already provides toilets for its customers to more than cover the extra cost involved. (I wonder what would happen if after a year the shop or pub decided that it wasn’t worth the trouble and withdrew from the scheme, but that’s by the by).
But do you know anyone who would maintain a public toilet in the park for £600 per year? The toilet will need opening and closing every day, cleaning probably daily too, stocking up with loo roll etc. and maintenance. Not to mention things like building insurance, public liability etc. The Friends of the Park do not have sufficient volunteers or resources to take something like that on.
At the moment SK solutions lock and unlock the toilets and presumably do the cleaning and maintenance. Presumably also they have someone who does a “round” of opening, closing and checking toilets throughout the area, so unless you get rid of them all you still need that person from SK to just do the park toilets. I can see that this would be a driver for the council to want to get rid of them all – but the obvious answer to me is to give the task of opening, closing and routine servicing of the toilets in the park to the Parks and Recreation Staff. Then SK solutions would only be needed for maintenance and emergencies.
I think the basic idea of the Community Toilet Scheme is something that could possibly work in an area like Market Street and Derby Way if suitable places for the public to use can be found and they are properly sign-posted etc. The scheme as originally explained to us by Cllr. Candler was that 3 Community Toilets would have to be found nearby before a public toilet could be closed. To me that was fine, and because there are not three suitable toilets available to replace the park toilets, then they would remain open. But since voting for the scheme councillors have told us that the goalposts have been moved and a toilet can be replaced by 3 community toilets anywhere in the borough, which is possibly the most ludicrous thing I've ever heard.
Being practical, at the moment there are two potential "Community Toilets" – the Co-Op is a very long trek especially for a parent with a couple of small children (particularly if only one wants to go and the other wants to stay on the swings) or anyone using the bowling green with even slight mobility problems. The other option is the library – this is upstairs – so you need to use the stairs or the lift – and for the same groups of people, the same basic problems. On top of that, the library is not open on Sundays (one of the busiest days). Also library staff have said that it was very disruptive to users of the library when the park toilets were out of action last year. So all in all pretty unsatisfactory. I guess that the clinic and the council offices are other options but I have no idea how practical their facilities would be for general public use.
Reviewing the link tricky found there are some quotes from Cllr Stuart Bodsworth: "The aim remains to provide a service that’s as good – if not better……” "We are hoping to work with businesses all over the borough to provide a service with better locations…….” Clearly these things cannot be achieved in the case of the Memorial Park Toilets, so why not look for ways to keep them open at reduced cost rather than trying to figure out how to get away with closing them?
