Craig Mackinlay, Member of Parliament for South Thanet has welcomed the news that from April 2018 local authorities in England will able to use their discretionary relief powers to support publicly owned lavatories. This measure was announced in the 2016 Budget.
Craig Mackinlay launched a national campaign to exempt local authority run public loos from Business rates in October 2015. Mr Mackinlay launched this campaign due to the staggering cost of maintaining public loos for local authorities and the impact this had on the local area.
Using Wingham, within Dover District, as an example, its Parish Council alone paid Dover District Council almost £8,500 in 2014 to keep the village toilets open. Of this sum, more than £2,250 was on National Non-Domestic Rates, otherwise known as business rates.
The British Toilet Association estimates that two-out-of-five public conveniences have disappeared in the last decade, in part because business rates makes them costly to run. The organisation notes that, “Having access to clean, hygienic toilets when we need one is simply about our basic human rights. This is even more urgent for individuals who suffer from medical conditions that require them to have immediate access to the toilet.”
Craig Mackinlay says, "I am pleased to see that my national campaign to exempt local authority loos from Business rates has been a success. Toilets are a public good and should not be treated the same way as commercial premises by being charged business rates.
By ending this inconvenient tax which simply circulates finances unnecessarily between areas of government, local authorities will have more money to spend improving the economic, social and environmental well-being of their area.
This change will be particularly beneficial for local authorities which are focused on tourism, such as in my constituency. For visitors, public conveniences are often the first thing they see and the last thing they remember, and no one should be put off from revisiting an area due to the lack of public facilities."
The Chancellor, George Osborne, said, “I am grateful to Craig for raising this issue. Public toilets support tourism and local economies. Because of Craig’s campaign, the government will legislate to enable local authorities to use their powers and keep more publicly owned toilets open."