Town to be 'pay as you pee' as charge agreed

TOWNSFOLK and visitors will have to fork out to use public toilets in the town centre after council bosses agreed a controversial 20p charge.

Stratford District Council's cabinet gave the green light to charge to use toilets at Waterside, Bridgefoot and Windsor Street at their meeting today (Monday).

Bosses think they can bring in as much as £180,000 a year by introducing the charge - which would help them save the £250,000 they need to on public toilets over the next two years to balance the books and keep public toilets elsewhere in the district open.

As part of the cuts shower facilities at Waterside will also be removed, space for advertising at the toilets will be offered and dispensing machines will be placed at toilets to bring in more money.

Liberal Democrat councillor, Peter Moorse, urged the council to rethink the charge at the meeting and said it would hit the people who bring money to the town, but cabinet members backed the charge unanimously.

Later in the meeting Coun Moorse said he hoped visitors to the town had 'strong bladders' in reference to a report on tourism which was also discussed at the meeting stressing the importance of understanding the needs of tourists.

In his report the council's head of technical services, Tony Perks, said: "Significant income could be generated from introducing a charge for using the main three public conveniences in Stratford.

"Data has indicated charging has been used effectively in a number of visitor towns across the country and 20p is a reasonable level of charge."

In the report it is revealed the Waterside toilets are by far the most used with more than a million uses a year, while Bridgefoot and Windsor Street receive around 200,000 uses a year.

The introduction of charging will require the installation of new paddlegate equipment which would cost £35,000.

The council agreed public toilets were an area where substantial savings could be made when it set last year's budget but a working group set up shortly after stressed closing facilities should be a last resort.

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