THE town council in Launceston could consider closing public toilets if vandalism continues.

While councillors said at their recent meeting they did not wish to see facilities closed, ‘there has to be a line drawn’.

The council’s estates and properties committee at its meeting on February 5 agreed to place notices at each set of toilets explaining that if vandalism continues the council may have to consider closing the facilities and installing CCTV cameras outside of each toilet block.

The town council maintains the public conveniences at the multi-story car park, Race Hill, the Walk and Newport.

Last summer the Post reported brand new metal toilet roll holders were destroyed and rolls of paper stolen from the conveniences at Newport.

The town council considered continued vandalism at the Newport site at its meeting on Tuesday, March 20.

Cllr Brian Hogan said: “It was proposed through the properties committee notices were put up on the toilets — if vandalism continues then this facility will be closed.”

Cllr John Harris told fellow councillors he felt the vandalism was down to one or two people, and said: “It will be the young mums with kids, ordinary people, children that need to go, who are going to suffer [if the toilets are closed]. The toilets have been closed 10 or 15 years and now they are open it’s great.”

Cllr Rob Tremain said: “For many years the toilets at Newport were closed. We spent quite a lot of money on refurbishment and providing disabled facilities. There was a TRAC [Tourism and Rural Access] Project [intending to build new multi-use trails at Launceston and Bude], that would have brought visitors to the town. Part of our contribution was the toilets at Newport.

“It’s important that toilet facilities are available, but the public need to be made aware there are vandalism problems, and need to keep an eye out on our behalf.”

Mayor Cllr Margaret Young said: “The precept has gone up a bit but when you go to towns where there are no toilets open it’s horrible.”

Cllr Brian Keighley pointed out: “Handwashing facilities are coming to the end of their life. They will need replacing and they are very expensive.”

Cllr Dave Gordon said: “We can’t continue to keep funding the toilets at great cost to the tax payer. There’s going to be a line drawn. If [vandalism] continues I think we should close them and make it clear why they have closed.

“We need to ask ourselves seriously how much more are we going to put into it.”