Okehampton Town Council agreed to continue to pay for the upkeep of the Market Street public toilets in a meeting on Monday (January 30).

During the meeting, most councillors agreed that, despite the high costs to the council, the toilets remained a vital facility for public transport users and tourists and should not be closed.

Cllr Jan Goffey said: ‘I recognise that it’s an expense to this council, however it’s a public service. We are a tourist destination and thanks to the railway increasingly so, and it’s all very well saying there’s toilets in Waitrose and toilets in other places in the town but when you have hundreds of visitors a day visiting the town you do need public toilets.’

Cllr Tony Leech echoed concerns over the closure of the toilets, pointing out that they were vital facilities to the bus and taxi drivers.

He said: ‘The last time this was debated one of the reasons for keeping them was for the taxi drivers because if they leave their taxis there and leave the rank it usually means it’s going to form a backlog because it’s the taxi at the front that goes first.

‘For me, more importantly the people who are waiting for buses and the bus drivers because they don’t have [other] toilets to go to and they don’t have the time to go [anywhere else].’

However, some councillors still questioned whether it was necessary to maintain the Market Street toilets, first raised by Cllr Christine Marsh last year, because public toilets were readily available in nearby shops, such as Waitrose, and the council already maintained a second set of public toilets at Fairplace.

Cllr Julie Yelland said: ‘Waitrose have toilets and they are open whenever Waitrose is open so there is an accessible toilet for people. They will not necessarily know where they are though, so there would need to be some signage.’

This discussion follows on from a survey carried out by the town council asking for residents’ opinions on whether or not to close the toilets in order to save costs.

The results from the survey, which closed on January 20, were inconclusive with residents split nearly fifty-fifty over the possible closure of the toilets.

According to the original lease agreement for the Market Street toilets between West Devon Borough Council and Okehampton Town Council, Waitrose agreed to pay construction costs of the toilet block while West Devon Borough Council agreed to maintain them.

Okehampton Town Council took over the burden of maintaining them several years ago after the borough council agreed they were too expensive to maintain, but the town council suggested during Monday’s meeting that it might approach the borough council with a new proposition, as yet unagreed, which would ensure the toilets remain open without being too costly to the town council.

At the end of last year the council calculated that the Market Street toilets would cost over £24,500 while the Fairplace public toilets would cost under £14,000.

The town council’s decision means a Band D property’s council tax cost £32 more for the 2023/24 financial year.