Town loos left in a squalid state on busiest weekend

A FAILURE to clean filthy public toilets over the bank holiday weekend has been branded “ridiculous”.
The toilet block near Morrisons, in Barnard Castle, was in a squalid state last week after the annual Meet funfair.
Town councillor Roger Peat noticed the mess at the county owned toilets at 8.30am last Monday morning.
He returned at 3.30pm to find four blocked ladies’ toilets still hadn’t been dealt with before rolling up his sleeves and cleaning up the mess with his brother.
Cllr Peat couldn’t understand why the facilities had not been sorted on one of the town’s busiest days of the year.
He said: “It’s ridiculous that toilets are not cleaned on a bank holiday – especially when the fair is there. It is the two days they are most used in the year.”
When Cllr Peat asked a nearby Durham County Council street cleaner whether the message could be passed on about the toilets, he was told the block was “nothing to with the county council”.
And the mess wasn’t restricted to the toilets near the supermarket.
The block in Market Place had dirty floors just days after being closed the week before for cleaning maintenance.
Paul Burr, the county council’s building and facilities manager, said the toilets were cleaned “six days a week” – excluding Sundays and bank holidays.
He added: “While the vast majority of people use these facilities with care, unfortunately they were left in a completely inappropriate state by some individuals, and were cleaned and returned to use on Tuesday morning (May 30).
“We would reiterate our appeal for everyone to think of others when using public facilities.”
Complaints about the state of the Market Place toilets were fielded by the town council last month, which supports half the cost of the block’s maintenance.
It pays £4,900 to the county council to carry it out.
Cllr Peat had told new members of the town council the action was a “case in point” example of what they could achieve in their roles.
However, in the wake of the latest mess, he was unsure of the value of cleaning efforts.
“£9,000 for cleaning the Market Place toilets every year seems a lot,” added Cllr Peat.
Missing soap, cracked dispensers and broken locks were also reported at the latest town council services committee.
Cllr George Hallimond told colleagues he’d seen youngsters messing about in the block at night.
He added: “There are girls in the lads’ toilets and lads in the girls’ toilets.
“I have chased them out and they’ve locked the door behind me.”