Closing or suspending public toilets across Pembrokeshire is one of the measures being considered by the Local Authority as part of discussions to balance the budget next year.

In a report to Saundersfoot Community Council this month, County Councillor for the village’s North ward, Cllr Alec Cormack, who is also Pembrokeshire County Council’s cabinet member for corporate finance, informed members, that the process of setting a budget for 2023-24 was underway, with estimated savings of £28 million necessary to balance the budget next year.

“The budget will be finalised in March 2023. Departments within the Council have been considering where reductions might be made,” reported Cllr Cormack, stating that public consultations would begin on December 5, and that he would update the Community Council on progress in coming months.

“One matter I wanted to raise immediately is public toilets. This is a discretionary service provided by the Council, which means the Council has no mandatory obligation to provide this service, however as a holiday destination we have always been proud of having the largest number of public toilets per person in the country,” he explained.

“Where PCC toilets are located in/near a PCC car park, the car park revenue has been used to support the public toilets. Recently PCC entered into discussions with the National Park about them entering a similar arrangement to subsidise the cost of the PCC toilets in/near their own car parks. Unfortunately no agreement was reached.

“This means that in the forthcoming public consultation on the budget, one of the measures considered is closing, or at least suspending public toilets. This does not mean that public toilets will close, just that it is one of the measures that County Councillors may consider in March.

“PCC will be writing to Town and Community Councils explaining the situation, and detailing the cost of maintaining the public toilets in their area. This allows those councils to consider increasing their precept to include those costs.

“By doing so, a Community Council can guarantee that those public toilets will remain open after April next year,” he added.