Plans to charge for public toilets in Brighton and Hove are hanging in limbo after opposition councillors voted against the proposals last night (Tuesday 17 January).
After more than an hour of heated debate at Hove Town Hall, Conservative and Labour councillors voted against the proposal but the Greens seem determined to push ahead with the new fees.
Much of the discussion focused on the impact of closing 18 toilets, most of them in parks or along the seafront in Hove, Ovingdean and Rottingdean.
Labour councillor Nancy Platts questioned Brighton and Hove City Council’s legal position because leaseholders, such as the Chalet café in Preston Park, required toilets for staff.
Councillor Platts said that people who took part in parkruns and members of the Older People’s Council were protesting outside the town hall.
And she had received hundreds of emails from concerned members of the public and businesses about the adverse effects of the closures.
She said that a report to the council’s Environment, Transport and Sustainability Committee seemed rushed, with legal, economic and health and wellbeing concerns omitted.
A senior council official, Rachel Chasseaud, said that the council was talking with the café operators to see if they could take on running some toilets for staff.
Friends of parks groups are also being asked if they are willing to take on running toilets and paying the utility costs.
Councillor Platts said: “We are destroying outdoor activities, closing small independent cafés, closing accessible toilets.
“There’s no way I can vote for this. It doesn’t contain the level of detail and analysis for such a huge decision that will have a huge impact on people in the city, our economy and health and wellbeing.
“We’ve seen the trajectory for a long time. We knew the direction this was going in. Why wasn’t there some planning done a year ago if it was going to be a make-or-break deal?”
Councillor Platts asked for the report to go before the full council on Thursday 2 February.
Green councillor Steve Davis, who co-chairs the Environment, Transport and Sustainability Committee, said that the council was not facing “ramped up” inflation a year ago, which he blamed on former Chancellor of Exchequer Kwasi Kwarteng’s mini-budget in September.
Councillor Davis said that Brighton and Hove would not balance its budget without a strategy and would face a “section 114 notice” from the government, limiting spending to statutory services only.
He said: “Should that happen, there’s no expenditure. In May, we could be facing four years of not being able to do anything. What we are trying to do is find a practical solution.
“We are trying our very best here to protect our public services. This is a controlled demolition of public services. We know why we’re are in that position.”
Closing toilets would not necessarily be permanent, Councillor Davis said, because the money generated from charging would be “ring-fenced” to bring “mothballed” toilets back to public use.
Conservative councillor Dee Simson shared her concerns about proposals for card payments, particularly for visitors and older people who struggle with technology.
She was told that the refurbished toilets at Dalton’s Bastion, King’s Esplanade, Saltdean Undercliff and Station Road, Portslade, would have paddle gates and card readers accepting credit and debit cards, as well as smartphone payments, which were described as common as the world moved towards a “cashless society”.
A prepaid card system available to be topped up from shops could also be introduced.
The council’s Policy and Resources Committee is due to discuss cutting the budget for public toilets from £905,000 a year to £605,000.
The proposals to close 18 public toilets from Saturday 1 April is also due go to the annual budget council for debate on Thursday 23 February.
The toilets proposed for closure are
- Black Rock
- Blakers Park
- Easthill Park
- Greenleas
- Hollingbury Park
- King Alfred
- Norton Road
- Ovingdean Undercliff
- Preston Park Chalet
- Queen’s Park Play Area
- Rottingdean Recreation Ground
- Rottingdean Undercliff
- Saltdean Oval
- St Ann’s Well Gardens
- Stanmer Village
- Vale Park
- Western Esplanade
- Wild Park
…
One option could mean that the 18 above stay open during the summer only and close for the winter.
Under the proposals, seven other public toilets would close for the winter anyway. They are
- Dalton’s Bastion
- Goldstone Villas
- Hove Park
- King’s Road
- Peter Pan’s
- Preston Park Rotunda
- West Pier Arches
…
Just eight toilets would remain open all year round. They are
- Hove Cemetery (north)
- Hove Lagoon
- King’s Esplanade,
- Lawn Memorial, Woodingdean
- Park Road, Rottingdean
- Saltdean Undercliff
- Shelter Hall
- Station Road, Portslade
…
The Policy and Resources Committee is due to discuss the budget at Hove Town Hall at 4pm on Thursday 9 February. The meeting is scheduled for webcast on the council website.
Just wow! Close all the public toilets in the parks. Obviously none of the councillors proposing this ever visit parks, or want tourists or want anyone to use the parks. I understand the need to save money but surely public toilets are a statutory service.
BHCC should lose a couple of highly paid execs or consultants instead of ruining the whole city.
or the large amount of Council ‘officers’ that are paid to trot out woke , self-righteous propaganda on social media , telling everyone how hip and virtuous BHCC is
Provision of public toilets is not a statutory service. If it were, this situation wouldn’t arise.
It seems pretty obvious that most of the public would far rather pay to be able to use a toilet, than not have one at all. Or there wouldn’t be so much public concern at proposed closures. So the Tory & Labour opposition voting against charging — who are they representing? Certainly not people who visit (or work at) parks or beaches.
You’re missing the point, Gabriel. This was not about the charging, but the proposed closures and a protest about a very inadequate report from an officer being slung at councillors late in the day and after it should have been delivered.
The financial problems are of the Greens and BHCC’s own making. Perhaps if they hadn’t of wasted so much money on their pet projects? Oh well – it will soon be May, when we can get rid of the Greens
Well done to Labour and Conservative councilors who seem to understand that the electorate quite simply will not tolerate this. The proposed savings were minimal to the actual budget deficit. Also claiming poverty but then still able to spend 25,000 on a quite simply pathetic art instillation, borrowing over £5 million for VG3, borrowing up to a £1 million for the Hanover LTN we all see where Green priorities lie and they do not seem to be frontline services!
“Rachel Chasseaud, said that the council was talking with the café operators to see if they could take on running some toilets for staff.” RIDICULOUS SUGGESTION. The council should be running the toilets for the general public who pay their taxes. IDIOTS!!!
A “section 114 notice” from the government, limiting spending to statutory services only (+ public toilets) is probabaly the best thing that could happen to this council. The waste on non-statuatory prvisions is eye watering and is harming this city.
Unfortunately there is no legal requirement on any local authority to provide public toilets. Over the last two decades the number of public toilets in the UK has dropped by 39%.
About time there was then. Since this council is totally incapable of discharging even its basic statutory duties, then it’s well past time to chuck out the Greens and also (perhaps more importantly) for the new administration in May to scrutinise exactly what employed council officers are/are not, or have/have not been doing (including the provision of reports deficient in vital information to councillors just a few days before the relevant meeting, which councillors – other than Greens – have rightly criticised). And in the light of all that, perhaps we are also entitled to know just how a £13 million overspend on staffing costs has been incurred by the administration when the taxpayers are seeing nothing tangible for their money. This horrific overspend was announced some time ago, but no explanation has been forthcoming so far. £13m is a huge amount of money in the context of these harmful and frankly petty ‘savings’ that officers are trying to justify, so where has the £13m gone and on what staff costs exactly????
The Greens are incapable of managing finances.
They have wasted so much on their vanity projects.
The simple truth is the Greens are unfit to run Brighton.
Hello May 2023 – Goodbye Greens
Where is the Councils understanding that people need basic provisions…it’s happening all over their decisions. Citizens aren’t some type of ‘automated human’, what are they not understanding. It’s no good if the council may deem to bring them back in ten years!! Problems with the toilets have been happening for a long time and a solution really could have been thought of by now…the excuse of reduced funding is wearing thin…admit that you just haven’t done anything about it, because it isn’t thought of as important. – maybe as individuals the council don’t have such problems. People of different ages, abilities and circumstances need to have toilet facilities easily available otherwise basically either people soil themselves or can’t clean themselves up, or they don’t go out, they don’t go and walk through the park or by the sea. If you’re in the midst of medical treatment or a chronic health condition, have disabilities you are simply prevented…The decision goes against all the councils talk of being a healthy city. And what’s this about ‘cashless society’ and that this is common…again this is simply excluding people and concentrating resources on those people that already have resources. Not everyone can, is able, can afford etc to have tech/ banking requirements needed. Councils are supposed to support all people and take into consideration the uncatered for parts of the population.
Small town centre like Lewes and Seaford manage to keep several public toilets open, free of entry. Yet a city like Brighton cannot do so? It is almost farcical, if it were not a really serious matter.
Maybe Cllr Davis should put notices up at all entrances to the city (that’s a laugh for a start) – “Motorists, the disabled, the infirm, and the elderly, not welcome here”.
And meanwhile will cafes such as the Pavilion Gardens, and those within parks have to warn customers that there are no toilets anywhere nearby?
We certainly have got the most bizarre and crackpot bunch of clowns running (sorry ruining) Brighton & Hove.. The sooner the Greens get kicked out for good the better.
The need to access public toilets in a modern society is a basic right ,and extremely necessary for the elderly retired over 14 % of the Brighton Hove population are pensioner’s and they vote more so than youngsters in any election particularly local and by-elections ignore them as your peril..
This is an absolute time bomb.
Imagine taking your kids to a park and then finding there are no loos for them to use?
Which park do you go to the next time?
I watched the council meeting webcast last night and the Greens were basically asking for toilet entry charges as a solution to a budgetary shortfall. The elephant in the room was that few were acknowledging where the shortfall had come from. There was also no guaranteee that imposing entry charges would actually get all the toilets open again. The costs of setting up the payment system are as yet unknown.
The greens were again blaming government cuts as the problem, but apparently it was only last month that they realised their income was not at levels that had been predicted by their own officers. These current proposals are now panic measures, trying to shut the proverbial stable door after the horse has bolted.
One obvious shortfall is the £800,000 less-than-expected revenue from parking.
Councillor Nemeth (Cons) suggested the loss of revenue resulting for the removal of seafront parking spaces actually accounted for £1.4 millions.
Councillor Platts (Labour) asked if an impact assessment had been made of the affect on tourism revenue if the toilets were to be closed – and apparently this has not been done. Nancy Platts also asked how closing toilets squared with the council policies of ‘active travel’.
Earlier in this meeting the committee had to speak with delegations from various groups, over local and city-wide environmental issues. The speakers included one group of Hanover residents who are totally against the proposed LTN scheme – which is said to be costing millions and yet has no apparent environmental benefits.
Councillor Hills (Green) was chairing the meeting and she batted away each delegation’s question like a parent dealing with kids who dared to ask for sweets at bedtime. When asked what impact assessments had been carried out over the Hanover LTN scheme, Hills said they could not know the benefits of what was just a pilot scheme.
All three Greens at the meeting, Hills, Davis, and Lloyd, seemed to be living in some sort of parallel universe, seemingly with little empathy for residents concerns – and apparently very unskilled in the accounting department.
They seem determined to press ahead with their pet schemes at any cost, and to them those schemes are more important than delivering basic services.
It’s surely only a matter of time before we residents start leaving bags of poo outside Hove Town hall?
Even the Greens must realise now their time is up.
One thing is certain there are several greens that need flushing away come May and it won’t cost us 75p.
The green administration has managed finances into the ground preferring to spend our money on their vanity projects rather than basic services. Now they will seek to blame others while continuing to waste money on the same vanity projects while looking to increase taxation and fees to be levied on us. Essentially we are paying them make life harder….
I remember during the first lockdown, when the council had the audacity to close the toilets in parks, claiming that they were liable to be vandalised. They obviously, in their usual brainless, thoughtless manner, did not take into consideration that the parks would be packed with people who, being unable to carry out most of their normal everyday activities, went for a walk in the park with their families. Even driving out to the countryside was forbidden, What on earth was the likelihood of any vandalism taking place at the park toilets with so many crowds about? Of course there was such an uproar about it, they had to change their minds and reopen them during the daytime.
And when they come calling round begging for votes at election time, I suggest we give them a piece of our mind, and tell then what we think of them. Or maybe we should not wait until then, but give them a phone call now.
As expected Green councillor Steve Davis blames the UK Government for the situation, and accepts zero responsibility for his party’s inability to look after city finances.
How much did his bike hangars cost? How much will the switch to Beryl cost? How much parking revenue has he lost? What will VG3 cost? Do we need a full time biodiversity officer? Do we need a 26 person communications / propaganda team, double that of equivalent towns?
Yet the Greens manage to find £10m per year from our taxes for the climate crisis slush fund for various projects with no defined benefits.
Perhaps if our incompetent Green masters could concentrate on delivering statutory services rather than wasting money on their vanity schemes?