Public toilets set to close unless town councils 'stump up'

Richard Evans, Local Democracy Reporter

Public toilets are set to shut in two north Wales towns, following a county council cabinet decision this week.

Denbighshire County Council cabinet voted to acknowledge the “budget gap” of keeping Denbigh and Dyserth’s toilets open, informing councillors both would close unless town councils “stumped up”.

At the meeting at the council’s Ruthin County Hall HQ, councillors learned the cost of keeping Dyserth toilets open on the High Street was £13,324 and £19,706 in Denbigh’s Factory Ward.

Both town councils had refused to pay for the “budget gap” after the council said it could no longer afford to fund the non-statutory service.

Speaking at the meeting, Denbigh councillor Pauline Edwards defended the town councils’ positions.

“It is Denbigh that has voted not to fund the toilets,” she said.

“I suppose anybody who has been on a town or community council realises what benefit that is to the town and community and what we provide, so obviously if our precept is going on other things, then there is going to be less things that we can do.

“And I suppose my worry is we pay a phenomenal amount of rent to keep the town hall open. We pay towards the car parks. If we are having to pay for the toilets as well, I would say what is next? What comes next year that Denbighshire can’t pay for? And that is almost double taxing the residents.”

In April 2025, cabinet approved a new “Public Toilet Strategy”, endorsing the proposed next steps for each public convenience.

This decision would have seen the closure of public conveniences at St Asaph, Rhuddlan, and Dyserth in a cost-cutting exercise that would have seen six other public toilets upgraded.

But this decision was called-in, and further recommendations were made by partnership scrutiny committee in May, which were considered by cabinet the same month.

The council then isolated the operating costs of each individual toilet and proposed introducing “a new contactless payment system”, which would be funded by “a council tax increase”.

The estimated income is based on a proposed charge of £1.

Costs

But the plan means there are budget gaps for running the toilets, so the council asked each city, town, and community council to consider covering this cost to keep them open.

The report stated: “The dialogue with the CTCCs (Community Asset Transfer) was at times difficult but was highly collaborative and constructive and appears to have resulted in generally positive results.”

But if the budget gap is not covered, toilets in the county will close on 31 March 2026.

Consequently, public conveniences at Denbigh and Dyserth are set to close, unless an agreement can be reached with the town and community councils.

Cllr Barry Mellor said: “We’ve now got a position where we are able to keep most of the public toilets in the county open beyond the 31 March 2026.

“I need to make it clear that this is only possible because a number of city, town, and community councils have been able and willing to fund the budget gap to keep them open.

“The exceptions are Dyserth and Denbigh, and it is unfortunately the case that we are having to recommend the closure of those public toilets from 31 March 2026.

“That is not something that we want to be recommending, but neither can we continue to fund those toilets without a budget to do so; however, the overall outcome of the decision to support this paper today would be that the majority of the public toilets in the county will remain open.”

'Not fair' 

But Cllr Gwnyneth Ellis said removing the budget from the highway and environment service for public conveniences meant that service heads had “a motivation” to close toilets.

Cllr Ellis said the service’s accounting was having to “bear the brunt” of costs associated with the facilities which was “not fair”.

She added: “I think it is appendix two (of the report) that essentially says, ‘Unless the town councils stump up, this is going to close,’ and that is so unfair.”

“In this case, what we are seeing is ‘you pay up or it closes,’ and I just think that is wrong.”

Cllr Ellis said as a cabinet, it shouldn’t be the approach they wanted to take.

“All you are doing is increasing council tax in those towns – people are currently paying the most council tax because their precept is higher than community councils,” she said.

“They are already paying the biggest precepts, and you want to increase those precepts. It is regressive, and it is not fair, and you need to find a different way.”

'Under pressure'

The council’s head of highway and environment service (HES) Paul Jackson said: “In terms of motivation, the reality is the motivation has always been to keep the facilities open.

“But I’m under pressure to make the books balance in HES. We are doing OK within the service, trying to even it out because I’m responsible for the overall budget, but the reality is the actual specific budget for the toilets has gone.”

He added: “That decision was taken a while back and myself and the team are working around that as best we can. But the motivation fundamentally is to keep the facilities open. I’m fully cognisant of the fact that I don’t have the money to do so. I’m trying to find an alternative approach.”

The cabinet voted unanimously in favour of acknowledging the operational costs of each public convenience and that the cabinet considered the current position.