Nantwich Town councillors have backed plans to refurbish and re-open Snow Hill public toilets in the town.
The plans include a pay-per-use scheme and provide two direct access toilets – one unisex and one disabled.
It comes after a public consultation, which received more than 700 responses, showed 81% of respondents in favour of re-opening the toilets.
And 57% of respondents said they would pay a small charge. It’s felt a charge would help deter “misuse and vandalism” and part fund cleaning and maintenance.
Refurbishing the current building is cheaper and more viable then demolishing it and installing a new one, councillors were told.
The town council acquired the toilets from Cheshire East Council control back in 2013 for just £1.
Councillors also agreed to support outsourcing the cleaning and maintenance of public toilets, at a cost of around £26,000 a year.
Proposed designs would offer flexibility to keep the toilets open 24 hours a day, or auto-lock them at night and re-open in the morning.
Cllr Pam Kirkham said: “There was an awful lot of trouble around that building in the past when it was open at night.”
Additional CCTV could also be installed on the building as part of the plans, the town council was told last night.
Cllr John Statham, who backed the scheme, said: “We’ve explored lots of different avenues with this, had to find out ownership of the land and so on.
“Eventually we’ve come to a good solution which is financially sustainable and provides a decent service.”
It’s thought the revamped toilets would be open every day of the year except Christmas Day and Boxing Day.
The refurbishment costs would be paid from the town council’s capital reserves, which currently stand at more than £480,000.
It is hoped baby-changing facilities would also be available in both newly revamped toilets.
Part of the building would also be used as a storage area.
Yes they do , and what a fantastic display they manage, credit to the town, but I believe the cost of watering the flower beds has risen dramatically, and that is my point, unless of course we can find a cheaper option for the watering costs
The flower beds are also tended by volunteers I wish to point out
The toilets certainly need to be open well into the evening at least. The toilets in the Civic Hall are only open when the building is open and the Market toilets are only open during shopping hours. So in the evenings and on Sundays there are no public toilets open in town.
Clean, accessible, free toilet provision should be a basic necessity in every town across the UK. It’s one facility that every person needs to use, and as you get older, a lot more regularly. Let’s get the toilets open, otherwise we may find that the flower beds are getting watered by other, less appropriate methods!
I would be quite happy to pay so long as they were clean and had hot water and driers – I do think the provision is currently poor. They also need opening longer hours. When I tried to use the market toilets at lunchtime a few weeks back they were closed – this is not good enough. The flower beds are a very attractive feature and also bring people to the town so I don’t think they should be sacrificed.
It’s an absolute disgrace that a town like Nantwich has such a poor toilet provision, and as for Paying for a pee I don’t think so, sort it out, a little less spent on all the flower beds and a little more on the basics would bring a lot more people in to the town