Falmouth public toilets opening at night call dog 'poisoned'

At a meeting of Falmouth Town Council last week, Cllr Zoe Young called on fellow councillors to consider how they could manage to keep the public toilets in the town open all night.

Her call follows her claim that her dog nearly died after eating human poo. Her vet told her that her dog had suffered cannabis poisoning.

Cllr Young says she doesn’t exactly know where it happened but it was somewhere near the town centre.

She said that having toilets close at 9pm meant that some people had nowhere else to poo except in such places as a hedge when they needed to go.

“We have a lot of young people here and we have a bit of a reputation as a party town. “We need to have public toilets which are accessible in the evening, if not it is a public health issue."

She said lot of people not confident there will be a toilet when they need one.

“There are problems with disposal of waste where it shouldn’t be,” she said. “We need to continue to have public toilets kept open and used for disposal by people living in a caravan or van. How we would pay for this I don’t know as it is not my area of expertise but I would look for support on that."

She said there are many towns and cities that managed to keep public toilets open all through the night and there are many vandal proof toilets available.

“Now I know it does cost extra but we could apply for additional funding from some corporation,” she said.

Grounds manager Simon Penna said Cornwall Council closed toilets all through the county leaving Falmouth Town Council to pick up that service.

Kimberley Park Toilets close early because of regular vandalism (Image: FTC)

He said the toilets are currently open from 8.30am until 9pm. He said the only one that has been open to abuse are the toilets in Kimberley Park which close at 4pm because of vandalism.

“There are still a lot of towns in the county that have no toilets at all,” he said. “The amount of money it has cost us already just to pick up where Cornwall Council left off, not sure enough capacity in the budget to take that further.”

Cllr Steve Eva said in an ideal world they could have toilets open 24 hours a day but the times we have the toilets open now we have quite a big vandalism bill as it is.

“I believe if you open the toilets overnight they will become a place for homeless people to sleep or basically ‘shoot-up’,” he said.

“It happened in Webber Street and we had to close them as it was being used by people for drugs rather than to relieve themselves.

“I have sympathy with Zoe, I really do with her dog being ill from eating something. I don’t know what it was I wasn’t there.”

He said it was not just the cost of opening the toilets they would have to have someone in to clean the them overnight which could lead to them getting abused.

Cllr John Spargo said once you get into the evening you are losing control of what people are doing. But he said the majority of people in the evening will use the toilets in the pubs and restaurants they go into.

Cllr David Saunby said they would be taking a huge gamble and he would be very reluctant to support it as it’s got to paid for.

“I do feel sad about it, but we’ve got an element in the town who are hell bent in smashing stuff up,” he said.

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Mayor Kirstie Edwards said she’s seen firsthand on the beach how difficult it was for staff with conditions already quite challenging.

“I can’t see how we can do it safely,” she said.

Cllr Young said she would just like the council to consider alternative ways of funding “We have a town with large numbers of young people who are impoverished and can’t really afford to go to venues with toilets, many of whom choose not to drink but take cannabis and other drugs,” she said.

“We have large numbers of teenagers and they are not welcome into pubs and restaurants.

“Do we want our town known, as has been reported in the tabloid media (Ed’s note: We think she means the Packet), as somewhere where there is excrement in the streets? I’m not happy with that and I want us to think of alternative options to tackle this."