An extraordinary meeting of the council has been called for this evening in a last ditch attempt to reopen our borough's public toilets.
I am proposing the motion and am hoping that a number of RA members have realised what a terrible mistake it was to close these three facilities across the borough.
It disturbs me that there is still waste and inefficiency present within the council's budget and yet instead of tackling this the RAs chose to cut important services to the public. Unfortunately first indications are that the leadership of the RA group of councillors is going to oppose my motion. Cllr Robert Leach has misleadingly suggested that one of the sites is no longer owned by the council. What he doesn't make clear is that the council had not owned it for a number of years, council officers having neglected to renew the lease, but that the legal owners have absolutely no problem with the site being leased at a peppercorn rent for the purpose of being run as a public toilet.
Cllr Jean Smith has sought to dismiss the strength of public feeling on this issue. She has suggested on local radio that that the 130 people who attended the public demonstration at the Stoneleigh public toilets (pictured above) were in fact not local but instead "bussed in" by local political parties. This has been described as a "pack of lies" by the local RA ward chairman. It's unfortunate that instead of dealing with the merits of the argument for public conveniences within the borough these councillors seek to mislead so as to protect their position.
Tonight's vote will be very close and I very much hope that, just as they did with their opposition to granting our local regiment the freedom of the borough, that RA will admit their mistake and do a u-turn. It is important that tonight they represent the interests of their residents and not the interests of the RA group of councillors.
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