‘Stealth tax’ blast at handing over Teignbridge toilets

Devon towns and parishes who are being asked to pay for public toilets in their streets have told Teignbridge Council they can’t afford it.

Campaigners from Ashburton, Buckfastleigh, Shaldon and Widecombe handed in petitions with thousands of signatures on them as Teignbridge members discussed the future of toilets in the district.
The chairman of Widecombe Parish Council, Yvette Elliott, said the amount the parish asks its residents to pay towards local services would have to increase by nearly 500 per cent if it had to pay to run its own toilets at Widecombe and Spitchwick.
Cllr Andrew MacGregor (Ind, Bishopsteignton) told a full meeting of the district council that shifting the costs to the towns and parishes was a ‘stealth tax’ on rural communities.
The council says it needs to save £250,000, and wants to hand down responsibility for the toilets to its towns and parishes before local government reorganisation comes into effect in 2027.
But the smaller councils said they did not have the resources to do it.
Sarah Prince, who handed in a 2,900-signature petition against closing toilets in Ashburton, said: “Teignbridge thinks it can wash its hands of the toilets because they drain finances.” 
She said Ashburton could not afford to fund the toilets.
Sue Clarke said Buckfastleigh Town Council couldn’t afford it either, and Danielle Westlake of Shaldon Parish Council said local people were ‘outraged’. She added: “All these extra costs piled on to small communities are just not sustainable.”
In Widecombe the parish council currently collects around £7,000 from local households to pay for local services, but Ms Elliott said that would have to rise to more than £30,000.
For a Band D household that would mean an increase from the current figure of £23 a year to almost £100.
Councillors warned that after local government reorganisation in 2027, Teignbridge would cease to exist, and there were fears about what would happen to the district’s public toilets then.
Cllr John Farrand-Rogers (Lib Dem, Moretonhampstead) said handing the toilets to the smaller councils would help safeguard them from ‘predators’ after the reorganisation and council leader Richard Keeling (Lib Dem, Chudleigh) said the facilities would be vulnerable to ‘asset strippers’ after 2027.
He said Teignbridge needed to look at offloading the toilets to help balance the books, and Cllr Martin Wrigley (Lib Dem, Dawlish NE), who is also the area’s MP, said the council should protect as many of its assets as possible by moving them down to town or parish level.
But Cllr Jane Taylor (Ind, Kerswell with Coombe) warned: “Does this proposal create benefits for people? No.
“And if we are not here to create benefits for people, what are we doing here in the first place?”
Members eventually agreed by a clear majority to keep toilets open until April 2027 while consulting local towns and parish councils on handing them over. If the smaller councils are not interested, the council will also talk to private providers such as the ones that run the public toilets in neighbouring Torbay.