ECJ EUROPEAN Cleaning Journal

People across Wales are running their local public toilets after councils have stopped funding them.

Volunteers are stepping up and using fund-raising schemes - or paying out of their own pockets - to keep their local washrooms running as community facilities.

Brynmawr resident Wayne Hodgins unlocks the public toilets in his town square each morning and checks that they are clean and well stocked before heading off to work. And if the loos have run out of toilet paper, he will often replenish the supply out of his own pocket.

Hodgins, a town and borough councillor for Blaenau Gwent, took on the role of maintaining the toilets when the council officially closed them in 2014. He receives a grant to cover some of the costs and funds the rest from his own transport business.

"I organise quite a lot of community events and if there are no toilets it dampens things," he said. "In the bus station in Brynmawr, people will jump off the bus, use the toilet and carry on with their journey. In the area where we live there are a lot of elderly people."

Meanwhile a few miles away in Six Bells, volunteers are raising funds to keep their own toilets open. Four local residents have secured thousands of pounds in donations to allow them to re-open the public toilet in the town's park.

Secretary of the Friends of Six Bells Park group Lynne Pratten said: "All four of us were born in Six Bells and are very fond of the park."

And in Ebbw Vale, the town centre business forum has taken over the running of the public toilets because retailers believe the lack of facilities is putting people off coming to the town centre.