Agenda and minutes

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Scrutiny Committee Public Open Forum ~ Guidance

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To scrutinise the strategy’s progress

Cabinet Member Angela Sandles and David Jones introduced the report and answered the members’ questions with Jane Rodgers.

Key points raised by Members: 

• The last survey was in 2019, will we carry out another soon to keep the document relevant? – ACTION: officers to seek clarity from WG about issuing another survey, and any set guidance for it 
• The Boys Need Bins rollout is very good to see, and toilets becoming Stoma-friendly – is there more detail as to when these measures will be achieved by? What will be the eventual costs? 
• Could some of the grant of £17,200 mentioned in 15.3 be used for this implementation? 
• Will the toilet facilities listed on the web indicate that there now will be bins available, some will be Stoma-friendly, etc.? – ACTION: to get the latest update about the A40 toilets, and to update members 
• Noting the importance of the bilingual signs, are we letting down the English-speaking residents by not displaying them in the meantime? Can that form part of the Action Plan? 
• Can 1.13 in the strategy be amended to say, ‘single sex toilet toilets will always be provided’ and ‘unisex provision will be considered as and when alterations are made to existing facilities in full consultation with stakeholders’? 
• There is an issue about safe spaces, and that bullet point could be misinterpreted to say that we're going to change all toilets to unisex facilities, and a number of people would feel uncomfortable going into toilets that had shared washing facilities that were enclosed – therefore, there also needs to be another bullet point which says ‘unisex provision will also be a single lockable door to the ceiling with wash facilities enclosed opening out to open safe public spaces, either internally or externally.’ – ACTION: Councillor Brown to provide officers with alternative wording suggestions 
• Note that the National Toilet Map doesn’t give any specific information on toilets in a given location e.g. Chepstow. 
• Would members be open to forming a working group to look at the strategy, as was done previously? – ACTION: members to discuss outside the meeting about the direction to take, and which members will be involved 

• Can we get feedback from our cleaners? 
• Are Town Councils responsible for arranging Environmental Health inspections or do they go through the local authority? Do the inspections have to be financed by the Town Councils? 
• A 5% response from Caldicot Town Council is very disappointing. Would an annual strategy for responses be a good idea? 
• There's a lot to be learned from Abergavenny Town Council and the service surveys they carried out 
• ACTION: to feed back that the Welsh in the National Toilet Map needs to be improved 
• The matter of Welsh language signs is surprising: as we are in Wales and there is an important focus on pushing the language, we should be able to produce them in-house; hopefully that can be done. 
• Regarding Changing Places toilets, there have been improvements but there is no provision in Abergavenny  ...  view the full minutes text for item 3.

Councillor Brown noted that the RLDP Deposit Plan has been deferred previously, and expressed concern that the opportunity for it to come to the committee could be missed, and that the consultation could fall in the school holidays, which will not be an effective time. Officers assured members that they are in discussions about the finalised timescales, and it will come to the May, July or September meeting depending on when the date for Council is set. – ACTION: Chair to contact Councillor Griffiths and the Head of Placemaking for clarity on timescales 

The minutes were agreed, approved by Councillor Thomas and seconded by Councillor Lucas.