Town Council agrees to spend its pennies on public loos

For many year's members of the public have indicated their wishes to have a toilet facility at The Carrs playground and the demand has been demonstrated not only by the requests received but also by the volume of residents trying to use the private facilities at the adjacent Parish Hall - as well as those choosing to use the 'natural' facilities.

In order to get a scheme off the ground, Wilmslow Town Council has decided to allocate funding of £65,000, agree a basic design brief and instruct Cheshire East Council (CEC) to proceed with commissioning professional services.

Introducing the agenda item at this week's town council meeting, Cllr Martin Watkins said "This really is crunch time, if we do not commit to an action tonight this project is unlikely ever to see the light of day. One of the reasons it is unlikely to see the light of day is because there is some money from CEC, it is 106 money, and if we decide not to go ahead we stand to lose this money and actually it should have been spent by September already.

"It's also the largest single project undertaken by this council to date so we need to agree, or otherwise, to provide funding for this which includes a refreshment facility which will help to recoup some of the outlay. Details of the costings will be available to council when the planning application has been completed. We have to work with Cheshire East on this one."

He added "There are no alternative facilities in this area and that is why we will agree to take on the running of this toilet and the manning of it if we were to go down this route."

CEC has approximately £30,000 of S106 money which was assigned to the project when the funding formally expired in September 2013, on the basis that the Town Council would act quickly to provide the additional funding required. Therefore this pot of money is likely to be lost unless the project is actioned.

Town Clerk Matthew Jackson explained "Cheshire East Council have been wanting to put toilets on The Carrs for some time but they have not got a budget to do that. What we need to do is indicate our support for this if we are going to because some of the 106 monies which were identified previously have already been spent on looking at designs and what we don't want to do is enter into a process of having designs drawn up to have those designs thrown out because 106 money will be wasted."

Cheshire East Council invited tenders earlier this year, the cheapest of which came in at £134,000, but it is believed that the proposed construction was significantly larger than required and over specified - additional enquiries made at the time by CEC suggested that a more basic facility could be provided for £70,000.

New plans will need to be drawn up and CEC will need to go through a formal tender process, all of which will bite into the S106 funding, so in order to process this project as a matter of urgency - to prevent the S106 money from being lost - the Town Council agreed to provide gap funding of £65,000 and take ownership of the facility upon completion. In order to do this they have built into their budget for next year £8000 to cover maintenance.

Matthew Jackson explained "The only chance of the toilet block being built in the near future is for Wilmslow Town Council to step in and fund the balance."

The Town Council voted unanimously in support of allocating the finds and supporting this project.

In building a facility it is suggested that a refreshments kiosk be introduced in the park which would provide an income stream to help cover the maintenance costs and enhance facilities at the playground.

Tags:

Cheshire East Council, Public Toilets, The Carrs, Wilmslow Town Council