PUBLIC TOILET RE-OPENING HAILED BY LIB DEM COUNCILLORS

Liberal Democrat city councillors are this week celebrating the re-opening of the public toilets on Cambridge’s iconic Parker’s Piece after a long campaign against public toilet closures in the city.

The public toilets, closed by Labour when they controlled the city council, finally opened their doors again on Friday, following those on Quayside earlier in the summer.

The closures were at the time were overwhelmingly opposed by residents in the council's public consultation and were bitterly contested by the council’s Lib Dem opposition, whose attempts to reverse them earlier this year were again rebuffed by Labour.

Labour lost their overall majority in May’s local elections and conceded to the Liberal Democrats demand for the toilets to be re-opened as a condition for continuing with a minority administration.

The argument advanced for the closure was low usage, but this was widely seen as reflecting the previous 20p coin access - which no longer matched most people carrying coins after the covid pandemic. The re-opened toilets currently do not require a coin to access and a decision will be made at a later date on future charging. If that happened it would most likely be by contactless card.

Liberal Democrat Deputy leader Cllr Katie Porrer said:

“This is really great news! For most people, amenities like public toilets are what their local council should be all about. Offering them is the mark of a civilised city. Cambridge benefits from its many visitors and it should provide properly for them as well as its own residents - thinking especially of those who need them more for no fault of their own. The closures should never have happened.

"It was a truly bad sense of priorities to look there first to make savings, especially having asked the public, and then ignoring their answer. Low usage was never an adequate reason for closing them. Visits were indeed only 4,000 in the last year they were open, but this was 28,000 before the pandemic, when people more commonly carried coins. Human needs like that don’t just change overnight. It was ridiculous that no-one considered the reason for the reducing usage and adapted positively to changing times.

“So this is a great example of the ballot box getting what people wanted and we’re delighted that this happened through us. We appreciate Labour eventually bowing to the public's wishes.

“It's now important that these newly re-opened public toilets stay open and that the council plans to support them accordingly. There is still much work to be done before the city offers what it should - and the condition of the atrocious toilets on Jesus Green must be next on the council's agenda.”