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Malvern Gazette 5th January 2007
Will you pay to spend a penny? MEMBERS of the public will be asked whether they are willing to foot the bill re-open public toilets in Upton. Upton Town Council is proposing raising its council tax precept by 27 per cent, allowing it to assume responsibility for the High Street lavatories, which were closed by Malvern Hills District Council last spring. Residents are being asked to attend a public consultation meeting on Tuesday, January 9, to voice their opinions on the subject before the precept is finalised on Tuesday, January 16. The council's total proposed precept request for 2007-8 is £120,477, including a sum of £14,000 for the day-to-day cleaning and maintenance of the toilets. This represents a significant increase of 50 pence per person, per week on the current financial year, and town mayor John Thompson said councillors felt the public should be consulted before such an important decision was made. "What the rate payers have to say will be taken into consideration when we decide what to do," said coun Thompson. "700 people signed a petition against their closure, and the whole population is probably less than 2000, so there is obviously a lot of support for them to be open." The terms for any transfer of the toilets have yet to be agreed, and the town council still holds some hope that MHDC may themselves re-open and run the toilets, possibly after elections are held in May. coun Thompson said that should the £14,000 increase be rubber stamped but not subsequently needed, it would be kept in the council's reserves to be spent on "other useful purposes." Both coun Thompson and finance committee chairman Mike Morgan will speak at the meeting, at 7.30pm in Memorial Hall, before the floor is opened for public participation. Without the allocation for the toilets, the 2007-8 precept demand shows a 14 per cent increase, which coun Morgan attributed to increased pressure on the town council's role as the first tier of public government. Opinion UPTON Town Council is asking its taxpayers whether they would be willing to pay an extra £26 a year to re-open public toilets in the town - the answer should be a very loud NO! It's not that the public toilets in Upton should not be re-opened, it's a disgrace that they were ever closed, but the responsibility lies with Malvern Hills District Council, which closed them. MHDC would love the town councils to take on this expense, but they should refuse to bow to the pressure because it would not be good value for public money. Town councils can't make the same economies of scale as are available to the district, and £26 per person per year is no small amount of money. In any case, the district council should be responsible for providing this kind of facility in tourist areas like Upton, Malvern and Tenbury Wells, and it's not unreasonable that cost should be spread among all the taxpayers in the district. Even if this proposal were not adopted, the people of Upton are already facing a 14 per cent increase in the town council precept, a figure that needs rather clearer justification than we were offered this week. |