CITY LIB DEMS TO WITHDRAW TOILET CLOSURE PROPOSAL FROM BUDGET

10.00.00pm GMT Sun 31st Jan 2010

The City Council Liberal Democrat administration will withdraw the proposed toilet closure programme from the draft budget at next week's Executive meeting.

Objections have been received from opposition parties, local organisations and members of the public to the planned closure of 10 of the City Council's public toilets. Despite these objections no fully costed alternatives have been formally put forward by opposition parties.

Cllr. Kevin Mitchell, Lead Councillor for Environment and Leisure commented: "In this testing financial period, we simply have to make some very difficult budgetary decisions and all areas of the Council budget were considered for potential savings, including our public conveniences. Like many individuals and families within the City who have had to adjust their personal finances, we as a council also simply have to live within our means".

"However, it is important for a strong administration to actively listen to residents concerns and when appropriate find alternatives. We have therefore listened, reviewed our plans and come up with a fully costed alternative which we would now like to implement".

"An all party working group will still be set up to look into future public convenience provision and the implementation of a Community Toilet Scheme. It is envisaged that the general public, including those organisations and members of the community who were concerned about the toilet closure proposal will have the opportunity to play a key part in this detailed review".

The City Council still faces a challenging task to balance its budget and despite already taking money from reserves to minimise the impact of the cuts to our vital services, it still need to make £1 million worth of revenue savings this year to balance its budget.

Therefore the alternative proposal from the Liberal Democrat ruling group is to reduce its current provision for next year's pay award for local government workers from 1% to 0.7%, saving the Council the required £60,000. The national recommendation is currently for a 0% pay award. However negotiations are continuing so therefore it is prudent to have a 0.7% contingency remaining in place.