Dumfries and Galloway Council’s Communities Committee heard on Tuesday 16 August that the Council is urging local communities to consider taking on the responsibility and ownership of community facilities in the region, including local public conveniences.
Our Council has already demonstrated it’s commitment to work with communities in respect to running facilities across the region. The Community Empowerment Act drives communities and our Council alike to work together to keep our communities thriving and maintain local facilities.
Earlier this year Councillors agreed to standardise our services in relation to public toilets to achieve savings of £90,000 and have resisted closing public conveniences despite the need to make significant spending cuts. The changes bring Moffat Town Hall, Munches Street and Whitesands in Dumfries, Stranraer and Portpatrick in line with the rest of the region’s public conviences which are unattended, removing the coin operated machines to allow free entry to these facilities. These changes will also allow for flexibility in the event that these facilities become managed by other bodies in the future.
Councillor Tom McAughtrie who Chairs the Council’s Communities Committee commented;
“Our Council would encourage any community to approach us if they wish to consider the possibility of running a community facility. There’s been a great take-up of communities taking on the running of community centres and facilities in the last couple of years. The benefits of this are clear to see for both the community and the Council.
In the meantime we will continue to deliver services in all 65 of our public conveniences across Dumfries and Galloway by creating a consistent service across the region. This will allow us to achieve savings of £90k in this full financial year and at the same time provide a fundemental front line service and keep public toilets open.”
Any community interested in taking on the running of their local public conveniece facility should call the Council on 030 33 33 3000 and ask for their Local Ward Manager.
