Council to pay £250k to stop maintaining toilet

The council was 23 years into a 50-year lease to run the toilets

North Devon Council has agreed to pay £250,000 to surrender a lease agreement, meaning it will no longer operate and maintain public toilets on Saunton beach.

The council entered into a 50-year lease to run the car park toilets with the landowners Christie Estates in 2002 but said the associated costs are now about £48,000 a year.

Its strategy and resources committee approved the move on Monday and said more than £1m could be saved over the next 27 years.

Councillors said Christie Estates could manage the facilities more effectively using their on-site staff and refurbish them with the money from the council.

A small team of cleaners were struggling to keep the popular location's toilets maintained, according to the Local Democracy Reporting Service.

The toilets needed a complete refurbishment after 23 years of heavy use which was estimated at a further £250,000, a report for councillors said.

The authority had looked at installing a payment system at the toilets to mitigate some costs, but this was refused by the beach owners.

Other lavatories owned and managed by beach owners are kept in much higher standard than those at Saunton beach car park, according to the council.

Committee members were told that closing the toilets was not an option.

The council's director of resources Jon Triggs said when the lease was signed in 2002 it was "a different time" when the district council ran many more public conveniences than it did now.

In the last couple of years it had made the decision to pass public loos to town and parish councils.

"This gives us an opportunity to escape from the lease," he said.

"It's a financial consideration but will make significant savings moving forward."

The council's lease will be surrendered in November.