Fee to pee as St Ives moves to locals-only loos

The Cornish town will start charging tourists and second home owners to use the public facilities

A WAR on second home owners in the seaside resort of St Ives has spread to an unlikely new battleground – public lavatories.

The Cornish town plans to start charging tourists and the owners of holiday homes to use its eight public lavatories, but full-time residents will still be allowed to relieve themselves free of charge.

It is the latest display of hostility towards wealthy summer dwellers, who own about a quarter of the area’s homes and have been blamed for pricing locals out of the market.

A ban on the sale of new houses as second homes has already been introduced and the council will soon have new powers allowing it to double council tax on holiday properties.

Until now, all visitors to St Ives had been able to use its public lavatories – including one site the council lets out to a private operator – without having to pay anything.

But St Ives town council claimed that it is no longer sustainable as the cost of running the facilities is £135,000 a year, a financial burden that was worsened by vandalism requiring repair work.

Louise Dwelly, the town clerk, said: “Many councils across the country are closing their public lavatories because of the huge cost.

“But we understand the importance of public lavatories to our visitor economy and this is not an option in a seaside town with beaches.”

Many other councils in Cornwall have already introduced charging to cover the costs of maintaining their own facilities, Ms Dwelly said.

However, she added: “Local residents already pay for all these costs through their council tax and we don’t want them to pay twice.”

It is expected that residents will be given a pre-payment card or access code to use the public lavatories.

But the council is also looking at ways to ensure second home owners cannot use their St Ives address to get free entry or share any access codes with Airbnb customers.

Only those with a primary residence in the town who pay their council tax in St Ives will get to use the lavatories for free. The new measures are expected to be introduced in time for the summer season, which typically sees hundreds of thousands of visitors flock to St Ives.

Ms Dwelly said: “Toilet charging is more straightforward following the pandemic where the vast majority of people have become very used to cashless transactions.

“There will be no cash or coin options but people can use their smartphone, bank card or purchase a pre-payment card.

“This means that facilities will be safer and less prone to theft and vandalism than if there was cash on site.”

St Ives has so far had mixed fortunes in its attempts to quell the second home frenzy.

A study by the London School of Economics in 2019 found that the ban had inadvertently led to a reduction in the number of available homes due to building companies finding alternative work in other areas.

Instead, competition between summer dwellers and local residents intensified as demand switched from new builds to existing homes after the new regulations were introduced.