Cabinet to discuss optional savings on toilet provision across North Norfolk

Date published: 6th September 2024

North Norfolk District Council’s Cabinet has started to prepare its 2025/26 budget.

As in previous years the Council is not expecting to receive the money from central Government that it needs to deliver all of its services.

Some difficult decisions will therefore need to be made in the coming weeks regarding which services it can continue to deliver at the current level, before the budget is set and a decision made at the Full Council meeting next February regarding the level of Council Tax to be charged from April next year.

A paper to be considered by the Council’s Cabinet, at its meeting to be held on Monday, outlines initial options to consider for the future provision of public toilets.

The Council currently provides 37 public toilets at locations throughout the District on a discretionary basis, at a total annual cost of approximately £1.2m.

As previously reported, NNDC is facing an overall 2025/26 budget shortfall of £1.8m, due to contract and energy price inflation and a sharp rise in the cost of temporary accommodation provision, a service the Council must legally provide to assist people with emergency/acute housing needs. Similar issues are being faced by the majority of local authorities in the UK currently.

This is on top of the savings that the Council has had to find to balance its 2024/25 budget. The Council has, by carrying out a thorough cost control exercise internally, so far identified savings of £1.073m of the needed £1.226m for this financial year. 

At Monday’s Cabinet meeting, members will consider a range of options concerning the Council’s on-going discretionary public toilet provision including:

Option one: Full/winter closure of selected toilets

Option two: Closure of all toilets

Option three: Transfer of some/all sites to Town and Parish Councils and other organisations

Option four: Do nothing and retain existing provision

The Council’s officers have offered a recommendation of progressing option one – the full or winter closure of selected, less well-used toilets, which could yield a saving of up to approximately £46,000 a year if approved

Leader of the Council, Cllr Tim Adams, commented:

“The Council is continuing to robustly consider and explore all of its activities from a cost-control perspective, to ensure we continue to deliver best value to our residents and visitors while taking appropriate measures to tackle our projected financial deficit this year and in the years ahead.

“Over the past five years the Council has spent more than £2million in providing new and modernised facilities in key locations, including the provision of Changing Place facilities in the District’s principal towns with high visitor numbers, for people with complex health needs. 

“However, with increased pressures on our budgets, we do not feel able to maintain all of our 37 toilet facilities to the standard we would aspire to and therefore it is now necessary for us to review future levels of provision - and consider the extent to which older and less well-used facilities can be provided in the future on value-for-money grounds.

“We remain committed to providing excellent public toilet facilities to support residents, businesses and visitors to North Norfolk and on Monday we will carefully consider all of the options on the table with regard to cost-effective future provision of this discretionary service.”

The full agenda for Monday’s Cabinet meeting is available here