A QUICK count-up reveals that 11 letters in last week’s letters pages refer in one way or another to the closure of public toilets in the area.

Surely now, even Cllr Rampton must have cottoned on to the weight of public opinion over this matter.

He is, however, right to say that there are 15 public toilets in Poole but carefully omits to mention that seven of these are on the beach and two are at Upton Country Park (which may well be free to use but are no longer free to get to).

The one in the cafe in the park is only available when the cafe is open. By my reckoning that leaves five to cover the rest of the borough. Community scheme facilities only work where there are shops big enough and willing enough to participate and are mostly in clusters in the town centre, on Ashley Road and in Broadstone.

Two key locations feature large - Baiter and The Haven. Neither of these has any nearby alternative and yet both were heavily used. The area around the Baiter toilets is already beginning to smell, and it is not summer yet. The signage redirecting people from Baiter is a tatty piece of A4 taped to the door with an instruction to go to www.poole.gov.uk for a map!

Not everyone has a smart phone, Cllr Rampton! And, having sat in the queue for the ferry for over an hour, who is going to want to walk back to Sandbanks beach to get to the loo, only to find when they get back that their driver is now in Studland!

Poole council seriously needs to wake up to the strength of feeling about this matter. It will not go away, nor will the smell!

MARK MORGAN

Lytchett Drive, Broadstone, Poole

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