Letter: Why pay for something you don't use?

Letter: Residents shouldn't have to pay increased local taxes (precept) to pay for public toilets - after all, they probably rarely use them.

So what's the answer, reinstall the old payment machines in toilets which are currently free or pay for supervisors to collect the money?

Both options are probably too expensive.

The suggestion that businesses should allow access to their toilets is fine for the pubs, teashops and restaurants that do so already, but others would have problems if customers wanted to scramble through their stockrooms to the toilet located at the back of their shop.

As public toilets are there mainly for visitors to the towns, and that benefits the local traders, perhaps the traders might like to sponsor them in exchange for advertising space on the walls.

Otherwise, in the name of the Big Society, councillors living near to town centres, such as the Taylor-Smiths, of Ludlow, might set an example and open the doors of their home and toilets as an example of service to the community.

Pat Stokes-Smith

Hope Bowdler