Amber Valley Taxpayer’s Money Flushed Away – £5 per flush!

Amber Valley Borough Council estimates each visit to a local public loo costs on average £1 and as much as £5 in the less well used toilets.

Some of our toilets are used as little as 30 times in a week with the more popular ones receiving 163 visits each week.

If you want to ‘Spend a Penny’ remember it’s costing you a pocket full.

However local socialists have recently SLAMMED the conservative led council for trying to find ways to save us from spending the pennies. 

The local Labour Party have argued that Amber Valley Council should continue to flush taxpayers money away, but conversely when toilet closures were on the cards Labour run Alfreton Town Council flatly refused to take on the public loo’s.  Under the socialists they worked out spending a penny would cost local taxpayers £20 more on their council tax bill annually.

Fortunately the conservatives have rolled out a new scheme to get businesses to open up their toilets to the public. The Community Toilet Scheme allows people to freely use the toilets at local businesses without having to buy goods or services.

If the new scheme is taken up widely enough it has the potential to save a large chuck of the £50,000 Amber Valley spends each year maintaining 14 sets of public toilets which are regularly vandalised in some places.

The way the scheme works is simple, businesses receive more than £700 a year to open their toilets to members of the public and new signage is put up directing people to the toilets. The toilets remain open throughout the normal business hours of participants, and would be maintained and cleaned by the businesses.

A number of businesses including Subway at Belper have got into the community spirit by opening their doors to the public, and the council is calling for more businesses to get behind the scheme.   Business owner’s wanting to get involved should contact Sharon Thomas at Amber Valley BC on 01773 841570.

Toilets at Somerleas Community Centre in Sherwood Street and Quality Solicitors Chapman & Chubb in Nottingham Road, Somercotes were made available from 1 December 2011.

Aileen Chapman from QualitySolicitors Chapman and Chubb said:

”As a community based business I am delighted that we can help the local community in this way. The scheme fits well with my firm’s own philosophy of being approachable and accessible to all.”