Written question WQ99591

Local authorities are responsible for provision, funding and maintenance of public toilets and for any decisions made in relation to them. Local authorities have a discretionary power to provide public toilets, but there has never been a statutory duty compelling them to provide them. Local authorities take decisions on non-statutory services and how they allocate their budgets in the context of the breadth of their responsibilities and are accountable to councillors and residents for those decisions.

The Welsh Government acknowledges that access to safe, clean toilet facilities is important to the public but also recognises the difficulties local authorities have in maintaining public toilets. Although the Welsh Government does not intervene in local authority decisions about public toilets, we made provision within the Public Health (Wales) Act 2017 to require each local authority in Wales to produce, consult on, publish and regularly review a local toilets strategy for its area. It is a statutory requirement for each local authority to assess the needs of their population for access to toilets as part of this process and to allow scrutiny by their elected members and residents.

The overall aim is to encourage local authorities to develop creative solutions to better meet the public’s need for access to suitable toilet facilities. We have provided statutory guidance encouraging them to move beyond a focus on standalone public toilets as these are increasingly difficult to protect from antisocial activity or afford to maintain in good order to current standards. Local authorities have therefore been asked to consider bringing existing toilet facilities in public and other buildings into wider use by the general public through collaboration with their owners and managers.