Time to close public toilets?

Saturday, 28 July 2018

The Taxpayers' Union has released a list of 102 ways to cut local government spending, including switching to LED lights and using sheep as lawnmowers.

Public toilets are poor value for money, and councils should instead pay cafes and bars a small fee for letting members of the public use theirs.

The idea is one of 102 cost-cutting measures put forward by the Taxpayers' Union, a privately-funded lobby group which advocates for lower council spending.

'Public lavatories can represent poor value for money in terms of the cost of maintenance compared to how often they are used,' the lobby group said in its 102 Ways to Save Money in Local Government report.

'Often the buildings can be valuable capital assets. A better arrangement may be to pay bars/cafes a small fee for agreeing to allow members of the public to use their loos free of charge.'

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* Auckland needs more public toilets to cater for ageing population**

'Alternatively, get the sports club or another user of the park or facility to manage the loos, they'll probably do a better job, and will be there when the facility is required,' the report suggested.

It's a call that may not wash with everyone.

There have been calls to build more public loos in Auckland as the population ages.

The Supper Club cafe in Beresford Square, Auckland. the Supper Club used to be a public toilet block and sits, looking like a Parisian cafe, in the middle of the space.

The Welsh Dragon in Wellington is another fabulous example of a former public loo turned to a better use.

Last year, University of Auckland senior lecturer in architecture and planning Elizabeth Rose said to make Auckland more accessible for the city's aging population and more inclusive for everyone it needed more public toilets.

'There's been quite a move to shut down public toilets, because they're costly to run and they have issues with safety around them,' Rose said in November.

But public toilets do sometimes close, and the buildings can get a second lease of life as something quite different, like Wellington's Welsh Dragon Bar, or Auckland's Supper Club.

The Taxpayers' Union crowd-sourced many of the ideas in its report from council mayors around the country.

Its local government researcher Garrick Wright-McNaughton said: 'The 102 suggestions, many of which were provided to the Union by mayors across the country, range from the common-sense to the novel.

Could we really manage without public toilets?

'Taken together, they serve as a challenge to unimaginative and undisciplined councils who allow wasteful spending to accumulate and then tell ratepayers to expect rate hikes.'

'The Taxpayers' Union advocates instead for a culture where fiscal prudence is not a cause for celebration, but an expectation, just as it is within private organisations and households across the country.'

Other suggestions in the report include:

* Pay down council debt

* Offer prizes to staff who suggest efficiencies, but allow anonymous entries too

* Scrap political advisors

* Stop sending staff to conferences

* Rent out under-utilised office space

* Graze cattle and sheep on council land to save on grass cutting

* Transition to LED street lighting

* Turn down the heating at council buildings

* Ditch colourful, photography-heavy annual reports

New Plymouth Mayor Neil Holdom, in a foreword to the report, said: 'I support this Taxpayers' Union initiative to highlight opportunities for councils, large and small, to identify savings or efficiencies in their operations to minimise costs to ratepayers and deliver value.

'While I do not advocate some of the more radical ideas which the authors of this document have included, no doubt to grab a few headlines, I celebrate those who are committed to sharing ideas and encouraging open and honest debate.'