PM hints at relief for dwindling public lavatories

DAVID CAMERON has promised to do more to save Britain’s dwindling number of public lavatories.

The Prime Minister said he would consider lifting thousands of pounds of business taxes from the conveniences to try to save them from closure.

The urge to spend a penny in towns and cities has become increasingly desperate in recent years because the number of lavatories has fallen markedly.

Campaigners say that many have had to be closed because councils are faced with onerous business rates.

Earlier this year, Cranleigh parish council in Surrey failed in an attempt to have £2,200-worth of levies quashed on its facilities.

The British Toilet Association estimates that 50 per cent of council-run conveniences have disappeared in the past decade – from 12,000 to 6,000. Although councils are not required by law to provide the service, they have discretionary powers to do so and to charge for their upkeep.

Mr Cameron told BBC Radio Cornwall that he had discussed the tax burdens with local MPs.

He said: “The whole issue of how public toilets are treated for business rates, for instance, is an issue they want to put very firmly on the table and I think that is important.

“It may sound to some people like a fringe issue, but when you are dealing with wanting to have lots of tourists, with having lots of beach resorts, this is a really important issue.

“Of course, there is more that we can do – and I know that we will be looking at all these things.”

The Department of Communities and Local Government is carrying out a review to consider the impact of local exemptions from business rates.

Public lavatories have traditionally been liable for taxes in the same way as non-domestic premises such as shops and offices are. Churches and premises used to care for disabled people are exempt.

Raymond Martin, the managing director of the British Toilet Association, said: “This is a public facility. People have to go to the toilet. We have to do five things in life – we have to eat, sleep, breathe, drink and we have to go to the toilet.

“With failure to go to the toilet we get sick, we get disorientated, we have high blood pressure, we can have strokes – this is a health and wellbeing issue. It is about equality, social inclusion and bringing more older people into town.

“The reason that toilets are closing is councils do not get any financial support from government to do it, so they have to sit down and look at costs.

“Councils really want to provide these facilities, they really want to have them, but commercially and economically they can’t afford to do it.”