Okehampton Town Council will discuss whether to close the Market Street toilets on Monday (January 30) following a public survey about the future of the toilets.

The summary of the survey results shows that Okehampton residents are split over whether or not to close the facilities, with some suggesting that the council introduces a pay to use system in order to keep the toilets open.

Others have pointed out that there are many other toilet facilities in shops and cafes nearby which could be used instead if the toilets were to close.

This is the latest since councillors originally proposed that the Market Street toilets be closed because they were too expensive to maintain.

At the time of the discussion, Councillor Christine Marsh argued that it was necessary to keep the budget down in order to afford the rising cost of electricity, water and insurance which are ‘spiralling.’

The suggestion was raised after the council calculated that it would cost £40,000 to keep the Market Street and Fairplace toilets open throughout this coming financial year which starts in April.

Okehampton Town Council owns the land at Fairplace, including the public toilets, but agreed to take on the costs of the toilets on Market Street, which are owned by West Devon Borough Council, when the borough council started to discuss closing them several years ago.

However, as the cost of living crisis continues, the council has found that it needs to cut back in order to keep expenditure and council tax at a manageable level.