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SPENDING A PENNY OR TWO

Visitors and residents are often at loggerheads in Oxford; but one thing they both agree on is public toilets – there aren’t enough of them. This week Oxford City Council’s Labour-run Executive is looking to close up to 7 more toilets.

Of course their press release puts it rather more delicately. They are “discussing a report that will look into conducting public consultation about the Council’s public toilet provision with the aim of closing some toilets and improving others.”

The aim of this exercise is clearly financial. They want to save some of the £385,456 maintenance budget on the toilets.

So they are going to consult you and me. “These 27 public loos belong to the people of Oxford, not to the Labour Council, and we want to know what residents, students and tourists think before we make any decisions.”

But the big question is – will the City Council Executive Board listen to what people say? This is a subject on which Oxford residents and visitors have spoken at length over the past 20 years on programmes like mine and in the newspapers. They want more public toilets. People are fed up with the lack of loos. It’s been a constant chorus of complaint.

If the people say they want more loos will the City Council re-open some or build more?

How much money will Oxford City Council spend on a 2 month long “public consultation process”? How many officers will be working on this and how many hours will the experience take up of officers’ time. Who’s going to evaluate the results and how long and how much money will that take?

What do you think? Is this a consultation worth having?