Madam,

Further to last week’s letter from Allan Phillips, in which he laments the closure of public toilets and challenges local authorities on their shortsighted inability to see beyond the current financial year.

I, too, saw the news item he refers to where Tourism Wales commented on the folly of closing public toilets, especially as we rely so much on tourism here in north Wales; it’s not rocket science is it?

Or maybe it is, as Gwynedd Council cannot, or will not, acknowledge the importance of ensuring adequate public toilets.

It was with a certain degree of irony that I saw a fellow county councillor on the news this week bemoaning the fact that Gwynedd Council is to close public toilets in his ward and expect his community council to foot the bill to keep them open, yet this same councillor voted in favour of the cuts.

Having spent the last eight years campaigning to keep our public toilets open in Gwynedd and stressing how vitally important they are for so many reasons, I was astonished to see in last week's Cambrian News (dated 25 September) an article in which Gwynedd Council is asking for feedback from the general public via the Gwynedd Summer Survey.

Really, another survey, hot on the heels of the Gwynedd Challenge, the “most extensive engagement exercise undertaken by a local authority”?

The Deputy Leader of Gwynedd Council, Cllr Dyfrig Siencyn, says: “The views of the people of Gwynedd are vitally important”. Is anyone else getting a feeling of déjà vu, or is it just me?

How many times do I have to say that closing public toilets is a false economy, and beyond stupid, for the message to hit home?

Perhaps the £3,000-a-year pay-rise the 10 members of the (Plaid Cymru) Cabinet have given themselves would have been better spent elsewhere. Just a thought.

Yours etc,

Louise Hughes, county councillor, Llangelynnin Ward.

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