Agenda item

Context:

To undertake pre-decision scrutiny of the draft Monmouthshire County Council Local Toilets Strategy.

Key Issues:

Part 8 of the Public Health (Wales) Act 2017 ‘Provision of Toilets’ came into force on 31st May 2018.  It places a duty on each local authority in Wales to prepare and publish a local toilet strategy for its area.

Local authorities in Wales now have the responsibility to:

·         Assess the need for toilet provision for their communities.

·         Plan to meet those needs.

·         Produce a local toilets strategy.

·         Review, update and publicise revisions to the strategy.

Local Authorities must prepare and publish their strategies by 31st May 2019. Due to the ten week consultation process, and Committee diaries, this Authority will be a few days late with the strategy going to an Individual Cabinet Member Decision on 12th June 2019. Welsh Government has been advised of the slight delay and is satisfied to accept. The duty to prepare a local toilets strategy does not require local authorities to provide and maintain public toilets directly. Indeed, further to the work of the ‘Public Convenience Working Group’ in 2009 (a sub-group of the Strong Communities Select Committee), most public toilet blocks were successfully transferred to Town and Community Councils to manage. It is for the County Council to take a strategic view on how publicly accessible toilets can be provided and accessed across the County.

A draft strategy has been prepared. This has incorporated:

·         Opinions expressed via a public survey that was undertaken between 19th December 2018 and 11th January 2019.

·         Comments made during the public consultation period that was undertaken between 22nd February and 3rd May 2019.

·         Comments from Gwent Police and Abergavenny Town Council’s own survey from the summer of 2018.

·         Two surveys of the 18 public toilet blocks, one by Members on 7th February 2019 and the other by the Property Services Department in April 2019.

The statutory guidance (August 2018) from Welsh Government has been followed in preparing the local strategy. One key undertaking was to ‘map out’ all existing publicly accessible toilets in the County. This comprehensive map, identifying locations and opening times, has been shared with Welsh Government to be provided on an all-Wales basis. The map will also be provided via Monmouthshire County Council’s website for open access.

The key actions identified are as follows:

·         Continue to work closely with Town & Community Councils on options for maintaining and improving public toilet provision in the County.

·         Work with partners on how to best utilise the £17,200 Welsh Government grant.

·         Work with the private sector to seek to provide more publicly available toilets that were most needed.

·         Display the national ‘toilet / toiled’ national logo in all participating toilet facilities, including leisure centres and libraries.

·         Improve awareness and information available on publicly accessible toilets by updating information on the Monmouthshire County Council website and Lle open access data held by Welsh Government, together with App development.

·         Regularly review cleaning and maintenance standards, together with Town and Community Councils that manage the public toilets in Monmouthshire’s towns and villages.

·         Environmental Health Officers to inspect both public and privately provided toilets as part of its inspection regime. Provide a grading of public toilets to determine progress over time.

·         Work closely with Gwent Police to find solutions to reduce anti-social behaviour associated with public toilets.

·         Provide proactive advice to all event organisers in the County on the suitability of their toilet provision.

·         Respond to any Welsh Government recommendations on public toilet provision, and seek out notable practice adopted in other counties.

·         Establish a small Working Group of Members and Officers to ensure recommendations are implemented.

Member Scrutiny:

·         The Select Committee supported the establishment of a small working group of Members and Officers to ensure recommendations are implemented.

·         With regard to schemes in which individuals would be required to pay to use a public toilet within the County, it was noted that a scheme had been trialled at a public toilet in Bulwark but had not been successful.  For such a scheme to be successful, footfall needs to be high in order to off-set the maintenance costs. However, this matter could be considered by the working group.

·         The Planning Department had advised that requesting toilet facilities in all retail outlets was not achievable, as it was not consistent with national planning advice.  A planning condition would need to be necessary. The Planning Department was of the view that such a requirement would not meet the test for necessity or reasonableness and possibly enforceability. Toilets are provided in restaurants and sit down food outlets but not generally in retail premises.

·         There is a legal requirement to report back to Welsh Government in May 2021. Therefore, implementation of the recommendations outlined in the report need to be implemented, going forward. 

·         In response to a question raised, it was noted that Lle open access data held by Welsh Government, is a national database that Welsh Government sponsors.  This will provide the initial information from all local authorities and national parks.  This will be developed into an app.