So the public toilets at the wharf and Pembroke streets will be closed.

It's a very sad day when public facilities are closed.

How will the local business feel when people start using their toilets for the lack of public ones.

Will the council's let the public use their toilet facilities???

I think it is another reason to avoid the town.

No doubt local businesses (including the Kennet Centre and Parkway shopping centre) will pick up some of the slack and there are always the excellent toilets in the West Berkshire Council Market Street office foyers which can be used by any visiting member of the public.

However, not so long ago I visited Waterloo Station (no pun intended) and was greeted by* a large pile of human excrement on the main steps. We can expect similar deposits here, I'm sure.

I hope our 'Nice But Dim' MP is thorougly ashamed of himself and his party's government and Chancellor for inflicting this on us. He's said before that he hates litter - drove down the A34 earlier in the week and there are already drifts of the stuff making the road a disgrace. Given that, according to Councillor Lundie gleefully announced "Ee ain't seen nothing yet!" God knows what state West Berks will be in by the time of the next election.

Bow your head in shame, Richard Benyon, and while you're looking in that direction please remove any human excreta you come across.

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*NB it wasn't intelligent human excrement and didn't literally greet me, just a turn of phrase.

I find it perverse that such a wealthy corner of England can't afford the common good of a public convenience. I understand of course that not everyone likes being taxed for services that they themselves won't necessarily use, but I feel that public a convenience is one of those services that differentiates a civilised society from, well, not really a society at all. For my money I'd have kept public toilets and libraries and got rid of Newbury's ceremonial mayor and moribund charter market.

I think it's also rude and insulting for Councillors to suggest that we should simply use facilities provided by some traders for their customers. Perhaps we could all make a start by dropping into the Council Offices; particularly after a good curry.

Still, it's helping to save money and at least we still have a second flagpole and splash pad to look forward to.

I agree that the council should get rid of the ceremonial mayor making and use that money to support financing the opening and up keep of the toilets.

As for the Market well that should be put out to tender to raise extra funds.

Have the councils not looked at installing pay as you go system on the toilets as other council do?.

Would anyone not agree to paying an extra 10p on the council tax to keep the toilets open?.

Will NTC open the doors to public using their toilets ?

As it happens I have no objection to public money being spent on inessentials if it's proportionate and benefits the community. I don't entirely dislike ceremonial, it has a place, but much of the town council ceremonial is self-aggrandising and it actually makes the council even less accessible and accountable, and it's this that I find fundamentally objectionable, but of course spending £1,000 on animal-fur-trimmed robes, £1,500 on a second flag pole, and £2,000 on the mayor's enthronement ceremony is also very much an outrage when the money could be so much better spent.

Likewise with the market; a thriving market can create a sense of place and could be the catalyst that prevents Newbury turning completely into a crap town, and that could make a good market something worth spending public money on, but our town council are ill-equipped even to run a church jumble and the charter market will never thrive under their dead hand, so I agree, the operation should be handed over to a commercial operator, and if it can earn a little rent then so much the better.


I thought the same. It's 20p a go in Devizes and there's a steady stream of punters in and out.

I had heard that a couple of commercial operators were interested in taking over the Wharf toilets (the Pembroke Road ones should have been condemned as a health hazard years ago). The cynic in me suspects that they need WBC to close them and make any staff redundant before they step in and take them over - thus avoiding taking on any staff commitments (TUPE etc).

Of course they will be demolished in a few years when the Wharf revamp gets going again.

Meanwhile NTC are kindly planning to build some more public toilets in Victoria Park.

I always thought that councils had certain things, basic things, they had to get right. You know, boring silly stuff like protecting the elderly, ditto the young, providing somewhere to read, somewhere to relieve themselves in a sanitary and safe environment. So, what do they close? Care homes, nurseries, libraries and toilets.

Good going both West Berks and NTC councils, you rock! Sorry, what I meant was of course, you suck!!

It will be interesting to see what happens on th day of the Bayer 10k when there's usually a queue for the toilets.

And the crafty craft race, and the waterways festival, oh the irony!

...but they are doing some basic things! Dressing themselves, installing a new flagpole, filling Vicky Park with concrete and metalwork. Come on, priorities come first!

Anyway, who is complaining? At the next election, I wonder just how many will really say to Mr Flag Pole and his mates 'up yours'.?

Not a patch on 1,000 runners all wanting a piss in the 20 minutes before the start.

Won't the Bayer 10k be starting in Reading from now on?

Not this year. I do hope though that Newbury AC find a new sponsor after Bayer have departed.

The problem is no one likes ****ting in public toilets.

You don't know who was the last one on the throne.

The announced temporary reprieve didn't stop this in today's D Mail:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-35...ic-toilets.html