In 2017, we were offered the opportunity of taking over the Toilets from Gravesham Borough Council who had confirmed that they wished to close them. A survey of parishioners was carried out and in a parish of approximately 6500 at the time, a response was received from 149. Of these 149, 136 were in favour so a response rate of just over 2%. On this basis, it was determined that responsibility and costs would pass to the Parish Council.

As you would expect, the annual costs for the toilets are rising as a combination of utility costs, wage costs (there is a contract in place for cleaning and opening and closing the toilets) and the fact that the building itself is aging. The actual costs for the toilets are shown below and in addition to the annual costs, we have an Earmarked Reserve of £9,000 specifically set aside to cover any large, unexpected expenses/replacement costs.

Year - Budgeted - Actual

2020/21 - 11000 - 14550.79 (includes £6k to Earmarked Reserves )

2021/22 - 12000 - 9626.56

2022/23 - 12000 - 10714.05

2023/24 - 14500 - 10118.41 (to end of December 2023) 

As part of the discussion around the toilets, refurbishment and the possibility of obtaining Grant Funding was considered and initially, it was thought that the Community Ownership Fund would be a route which could be investigated were the council to decide to refurbish the toilets. Upon investigation, it was established that this was only available on a matched funding basis. With the earmarked Reserve sitting at £9000 this would secure a total figure for refurbishment of only £18,000 ( assuming that our application was successful) which is likely to be insufficient (as part of the budget setting process, indicative costs for the replacement/refurbishment of the toilets were sought and figures ranged from £50,000 to significantly higher)

The other factor that was discussed at length by councillors was the utilisation of the toilets. In the period from October 2022 to March 2023 footfall counters were installed in the toilet blocks and within that period, 52 visits were recorded.

We absolutely accept that visits to the toilets increase over the Summer months so for purposes of benchmarking the actual costs per visit of the toilets, a range of numbers were used.

At 250 visits, extrapolating the costs for 2023/2024 to £1264.80 per month ( the total to date divided by the 8 months) the cost per visit is £60.71.

If there are 500 visits over the course of the year , the cost is £30.35 each time.

If it is assumed that there are 2 visit per day, every day of the week ( 728 visits a year) the cost is £20.84

If the £9000 put to one side in the Earmarked Reserve is included within the total “toilet cost “ the amount per use at 2 visits per day is £33.21

It is further accepted that the majority of users are not parishioners but predominantly are courier drivers, the bus drivers, Gravesham council workers etc and are not precept payers.

Taking everything into account, the majority of councillors voted to close the Pitfield Green Toilets and replace them with a Community Toilet Scheme of which two sites have already expressed an interest and conversations will take place to firm up arrangements with these and other sites across the Parish. We aim to ultimately have 6 venues across the Parish with the benefits for parishioners and other users of longer opening hours and access to a greater number of facilities.