Council’s plans to close public toilet delayed temporarily

Richard Evans, local democracy reporter

A council’s plans to shut around half of its public toilets have been put on hold after a scrutiny committee voted to suspend closure until a cabinet meeting next week.

At a Conwy Council finance scrutiny committee meeting, councillors voted in favour of recommending cabinet provides further statistics in advance of further consultation with members.

Cabinet, though, will have the final say on the toilet cuts.

In July Conwy announced it would close 19 of its 40 public toilets on 4 September 2024 to cut costs.

The council also plans to scale back toilet opening hours and close services out of season.

But the closures will now be put on hold – at least temporarily.

Redebated

The matter was redebated after Conservative councillor Harry Saville tabled a motion to halt the plans.

The motion was signed by councillors Harry Saville, Jo Nuttall, Thomas Montgomery, Louise Emery, Antony Bertola, and Samantha Cotton.

The Tories claim the council had opted to shut toilets behind closed doors without proper consultation, including with local members – contrary to a cabinet resolution made last November.

Councillors heard how a public announcement was made on the toilet closures just two hours after councillors learned of the decision in July.

At the Bodlondeb meeting yesterday (Monday), Cllr Gareth Jones made the proposal to suspend the closures, which was seconded by Cllr Abdul Khan following a long debate, and then voted through.

Flawed

Speaking at the meeting, Cllr Jones said: “I think the original decision to close the toilets was actually flawed. But to be honest, we all bear responsibility for that. Myself and my colleagues who voted against it, we obviously weren’t persuasive enough to win the argument, and obviously the councillors who voted in favour of it (were responsible). But collectively we do share that responsibility.

“That is where the responsibility of us ordinary councillors ends. As ordinary councillors we would expect proper processes and governance to be followed so that we actually reach the right conclusion and the right decisions.

“I would expect that resolutions passed by cabinet are adhered to. I would expect the statements made in the chamber are actually adhered to. I would have expected there would have been more than two hours’ notice given between telling local members of the proposals and actually making the formal announcements.”

Indeed, the motion asked Conwy’s chief executive Rhun ap Gareth to explain why there had been only a two-hour gap between councillors learning of the toilet closure plans and a public announcement without ‘consultation or dialogue’ with local members.

Financial pressures

Speaking earlier at the meeting, Mr ap Gareth reminded members of the financial pressures faced by the council and said Conwy had to look at both its statutory and non-statutory services such as public toilets.

He said the financial predicament would lead to ‘difficult and unpopular’ decisions.

“We are trying to deal with these pressures within the context of shrinking budgets,” he said.

“Officers at all levels are diligent, professional, and do their best, but it is incredibly challenging.”

“So to turn to the notice of motion itself, I’d like to address one of the main concerns raised, which appears to be the period between informing councillors and releasing the information wider. I take responsibility for this as chief executive, and I acknowledge if we had our time again that we would have certainly given local members more time to consider. We will learn from that, I promise you.”

But Mr ap Gareth then said he wanted to put the delay in context, claiming officers were unable to release controversial political information during two election periods, resulting in a curtailed timetable for releasing information.

Budget

Leader Cllr Charlie McCoubrey blamed the cuts on a difficult budget after Conwy received the joint lowest local government settlement in Wales.

“This (the closures) was put forward as part of an incredibly difficult budget,” he said.

“We saw council tax rise by essentially 10% for the second year in a row but also the need to make nearly £12m of savings.”

The leader then claimed councillors had not raised concerns about public toilets at previous meetings as a priority.

Instead, Cllr McCoubrey claimed most councillors were much more concerned about the level of council tax increase (9.67%) and that Conwy needed to keep the rise down.

Cllr McCoubrey then said the toilet strategy would save around £460K a year of the £12m savings needed.

He added: “This is about money. It is absolutely about money. Nobody wants to cut a single facility for people to use. But we have to cut our cloth accordingly to the money we’ve got.”

Cllr Simon Croft also said: “I’m a bit concerned that the first time we saw this proposed list of closures was in July. When we debated it previously and agreed the toilet strategy back in the autumn, there was no list of toilets (proposed), no strategy, and no money numbers attached to it at all, which was a bit of a concern.

Cllr Anne McCaffrey said: “I support Cllr Harry’s (Saville) call for a pause so that we can actually have the proper engagement and consultation, which I understand is now happening but that’s against the context of an imposed closure list.”

Cllr Mandy Hawkins said: “No one wants to close toilets. No one is sitting here today – whether it be officers, councillors, members of the public – none of us want to lose toilets.

“It is simply because we’ve had years and years and years of (government funding) cuts where millions have been taken out of those budgets.”

Chairing the meeting, Cllr Cheryl Carlisle apologised to members of the public attending the council chamber for having to attend multiple meetings to hear the debate.

The matter was initially scheduled for debate at Conwy’s economy and place scrutiny committee before a special meeting was held last week. But the debate was delayed again until the finance and resources overview and scrutiny committee on Monday.

The matter will be decided at a future cabinet meeting. The cabinet next meet on Tuesday 10 September.