'Honesty boxes' to replace public toilet charges at five Argyll and Bute spots

‘Jonesty boxes’ are set to replace charging mechanisms at five public toilets in Argyll and Bute after councillors unanimously agreed.

A committee agreed last month that a proposal to make the change at the facilities at Glenmorag, Colintraive, Port Bannatyne, Tighnabruaich and Sandbank should be recommended to the full council.

Those five toilets made less than £5,000 of income between them in 2024/25 and will now revert to free access with an ‘honesty box’ for donations.

Facilities at Inveraray, Helensburgh, Ardrishaig and Lochgilphead made more and will retain their charging mechanisms.

During approval of minutes at a full council meeting on Wednesday, April 29, depute provost Councillor Jan Brown (SNP, Mid Argyll), chairing the meeting, asked for agreement on the recommendation, with no debate following.

At a meeting of the council’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.”