Argyll and Bute Council plan to scrap public toilet charges

Councillors have agreed to recommend that five public toilets in Argyll and Bute revert to free access with ‘honesty boxes’.

The facilities at Glenmorag, Port Bannatyne, Colintraive, Tighnabruaich and Sandbank were subject to the proposal after making less than £5,000 of income between them in 2024/25.

Charging mechanisms will be retained at Inveraray, Helensburgh, Ardrishaig and Lochgilphead, which brought in more income.

A report had recommended that the committee approve the proposal for free access at the five facilities listed.

However, it was agreed that the recommendation should be changed to say that it should be put to the full council instead. The full council is next due to meet on Wednesday, April 29.

The discussion took place at a meeting of the authority’s environment, development and infrastructure committee on Thursday, March 19.

Councillor William Sinclair (Liberal Democrat, Cowal) said: “When speaking to community councils, specifically at Colintraive, they were interested in potentially taking that on as an asset transfer.

“But a question was how much are the council going to give them to maintain that? There has been an extra amount of money – how would you see the council engaging, whether it be community councils or other community groups? How would you get them to look favourably on public conveniences?”

Andy Summers, the council’s head of roads and infrastructure services, responded: “We recognise that dealing with the council is not as easy as it could be for community groups, se we want to look at a more streamlined approach.

“We need to balance the effort because only so many community groups will be interested. These are the ones we want to engage with, but I was not aware of Colintraive being interested.

“We also want to ensure that groups are properly constituted. From my experience, community councils cannot take on asset transfers.

“We will work with colleagues to develop a policy for asset transfers. There are a lot of different models we can use.”