Denbighshire County Council's Local Toilet Strategy Needs Assessment Consultation (Completed)

This consultation is now closed.

Have your say on how the Council should manage its Local Toilet Strategy for 2024-2027

What are we doing?

We are consulting on how we approach and manage public toilet provision in Denbighshire in the future.

Why are we doing this?

Under the requirements of Part 8 of the Public Health (Wales) Act 2017, Local Authorities such as Denbighshire County Council are required to develop and publish a Public Toilet Strategy.

The Strategy should identify how we assess the need for public toilets in Denbighshire, and how we will manage this need.

Please note: there is no requirement for Denbighshire County Council to own or maintain any public toilets, only to ensure that there is a Strategy in place to ensure that needs are being met.

What is a public toilet?

Public toilets (sometimes called public conveniences) are toilet facilities which the public can use. These can include purpose-made toilet blocks, or toilets within existing buildings such as offices, shops, visitor attractions, hotels and restaurants.

Public toilets can be charged for their use, but to be considered a public toilet, there should be no other charges incurred. For example, a toilet in a café that requires you to buy a drink or food item before you can use the toilet would be a private customer toilet, rather than a public toilet.

How do we assess the need for public toilets in Denbighshire?

The statutory guidance which goes with the legislation states we should consider statistical data including

  • Usual residential population in terms of overall numbers
  • Additional consideration for differences in gender, age, disability or chronic health condition etc which may affect someone's toilet use
  • Additional consideration for seasonal variations in visitor numbers from outside of that community
  • An assessment of popular or busy locations within each community
  • An assessment of the availability and opening hours of all public toilets within each community - including both those run by the County Council as well as any run by other providers including private providers such as supermarkets, restaurants, cafés etc
  • Consultation with local communities, businesses and organisations or charities which support anybody who may have an increased need to use the public toilet

What do we want to know?

We would like to know what you think.

What difference will it make?

Your views will help inform the final version of our Needs Assessment document, and a revised version of our Public Toilet Strategy.

How can you get involved?

Take part in our survey

We have created a consultation survey that is open to:

  • Residents of Denbighshire and visitors/tourists to Denbighshire
  • County Councillors and representatives of City, Town and Community Councils
  • Charities and third sector organisations who support people who may have additional needs or considerations around toilet use
  • Businesses who would like to register interest in finding out more about our Community Toilet Scheme

This survey is now closed.

Paper copies of the survey can be collected from and returned to any Denbighshire Library and/or One Stop Shop

You can write to

Paul Jackson
Head of Highways and Environmental Services
Denbighshire County Council
PO Box 62
Ruthin
LL15 9AZ

The closing date for all responses is: 15 September 2024.

How will we feed back?

We will provide feedback on the Needs Assessment consultation in the 'feedback' section below. We will also write to anyone who wishes to be updated when we are ready to consult on our Draft Local Toilet Strategy 2024-2027

Feedback

  • 34,872 people saw posts about the consultation on social media
  • 1,419 people took park in the consultation
  • 65-85% of people supported all of the Council's suggestions for residential toilet need
  • 75-84% of people supported all of the Council's suggestions for additional requirements for an ageing population, disabled population, and tourists/seasonal visitors
  • 60% of people are prepared to pay to use public toilets
  • 67% of people wanted to see the Council set up a Community Toilet Scheme
  • 65% of people said they would be more likely to support a business participating in a Community Toilet Scheme

We have used the views provided in the consultation to develop our Draft Local Toilet Strategy 2024-2027.

We will be consulting on the Draft Local Toilet Strategy in December 2024 and January 2025.