Town Councillor Robert Payne has called on the Town Council to investigate the possibility of removing the 20p charge for using public toilets, to make them free at the point of use. Ironically, the collection of this charge is now costing more than the income it generates.

The town council took over the running of six toilet blocks across Weston two years ago and introduced the charge, but since then they have been plagued by vandalism and damage directly related to the cash on site: both as a result of people trying to steal the money and damage due to failed attempts to override the charge by inserting other objects into the coin mechanism.

This cost of regular repairs due to this damage now exceeds the £6,500 per year the council collects and Robert Payne believes that to continue with this no longer makes any sense.

He said: “The people of Weston are paying three times for this one service. They pay for the provision of the public toilets through their council tax, then they pay the extra amount to cover this additional cost of repairing the damage, and they pay again when they want to use to toilets. It’s no longer good enough for the council to say that the need to apply a charge to offset some of the costs incurred in running the loos, as it is now having the opposite effect and is increasing costs.”

However, so far council bosses have refused even to investigate the viability of an alternative, as they believe in principle in charging people for the service, even though they could both relieve an extra burden on local taxpayers and make the public toilets more convenient to use.