Opinion | The Conservatives are to blame for East Devon's public toilet situation

Ed: Nub News is impartial and does not endorse views expressed in opinion pieces.

This article is the view of Cllr Joe Whibley (Independent, Exmouth Town Ward) and concerns public toilets in the district and the recent consultation.

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I've had to wait to calm down to write this column - I suspect if I'd done it a couple of weeks ago, I may have spoken out of turn and got myself in trouble… so here goes!

Firstly, East Devon District Council has this week been speaking about plans to change public toilet provision, following the recent public consultation.

Some will remain open, some will be offered as commercial sites, and some may be offered to town councils for them to run. We also discussed the fact that charges for use will probably be introduced.

The reason for my anger is that we have to have this conversation at all. If we don't do something, most toilets will have to close. It's not the current administration's fault, it's not your fault. Yet we have to deal with it.

Make no mistake, the blame for this lies fairly and squarely at the feet of the Conservative administration that ran East Devon until 2019.

The previous Conservative administration haven't invested properly in maintaining or updating toilets, the last expenditure of any sort happening in 2014.

Kicking the can down the road has been a common theme - don't start charging (or increasing) fees, or increasing council tax and we'll get elected again. Don't stand up and take responsibility. Don't plan for the future. Don't do what we morally should do. Yet when we reach the debate for toilet closures, they all nod sagely and agree we should introduce them - well why didn't you?!

This isn't a new problem - at least the current administration have the guts to stand up and do it!

The other reason the public toilet debate makes my blood boil is that at a national level local government is being completely and totally being annihilated.

Since the Conservatives came to power in 2010, local government has seen (as stated in the debate at EDDC Overview) a real term cut in its budget of 77 per cent - yes, 77 per cent.

We have responsibility for everything we did in 2009, yet in the intervening 12-year period we are expected to carry out those responsibilities for nearly a quarter of the amount.

And Conservative councillors sit and nod, accepting their fate as if it were a good thing, never challenging their paymasters in Westminster to actually fund local services in a way which will actually provide, and really serve the communities they represent.

True 'Levelling Up' could be achieved by proper funding of local services and amenities, not the recent beauty pageant we witnessed. I challenge local Tories to stand up and lobby, both locally and at national level, for a fairer local government agreement.

Yes, the Democratic Alliance will go down as having raised car park charges and introduced fees for public toilets. But we will have done the right thing, something all local conservatives present at the overview meeting agreed with, and something that we have been forced into by the decimation of our national level funding.

It takes guts to to make these decisions, but unfortunately, due to Conservative mismanagement at East Devon over many years, we do this or the council is declared bankrupt.

Stay safe.