PEOPLE are being told that a future consultation about the planned building of a new public toilet block in Wellington town centre is NOT a referendum on whether it should go-ahead.
The ongoing soap opera of the rebuilding of the public conveniences in Longforth Road was discussed once again by members of Wellington Town Council’s policy and finance committee on January 13.
It was back in August last year when the council agreed to replace the much-maligned toilet block which had subsequently been demolished and plans have now been given approval from Somerset Council.
But now the town council has to decide what to do next and apply for a Public Work Loan Board loan amounting to £238,205 to help pay for the toilet block project which could be paid back at the rate of £20,315 per year over a 20-year period.
But the town council is still awaiting the outcome of an insurance claim which was submitted after a motorist drove into the toilet block in December 2022 and made the building unsafe.
Cllr John Thorne, speaking on January 13, said: “We need to go-ahead with this and I’m happy to propose that. We do look a laughing stock because it has taken so long, but that’s because of the insurance claim.”
But if the council expresses an interest in getting a loan from the PWLB, part of the process is that it holds a public consultation and find out if people support the project and if they are happy that a substantial loan will fund the work at taxpayers expense.
The council has already included repayments of £20,000 per year when setting its 2025-26 budget – which amounts to 1.6 per cent of the authority’s Council Tax precept.
But Cllr Justin Cole said: “What happens if people come back to us in the consultation and say they don’t want the toilets to be built?”
Town clerk Dave Farrow responded: “That’s up to councillors to decide as to what weight they put on the results of the consultation.”
Cllr Keith Wheatley said: “The public consultation is NOT a referendum on the new toilets. We don’t want a Brexit-style vote on the loos.”
Councillors discussed how the consultation should be carried out and whether it needed to be mailed out to every address in the town, while others were concerned that it could lead to heated conversations on social media between “keyboard warriors.”
Cllr Catherine Govier said: “If we’re going to do a consultation – we have to do it right. We need to make sure that as many people as possible get to be consulted on it.
“If 98 per cent of people said “no” to it I feel we’d be going against the public if we went ahead.”
But Cllr Wheatley added: “If we had the money in the bank we’d have already been rebuilding the toilets as we’ve already made that decision.
“This consultation is not a referendum. We’re just doing this consultation as part of the loan process.”