West Norfolk councillor ‘disgusted’ over condition of public toilet block
A West Norfolk councillor has called for action after declaring he was “disgusted” by the state of a public toilet block in Hunstanton.
David Pope told Thursday’s full council meeting he had used a facility near the Oasis leisure centre during a recent visit.
He said: “I was totally disgusted by the stench. What message does this send out to our visitors?
He called for better cleaning materials to be used in the toilets to deal with the problem.
But current cabinet member Adrian Lawrence said he understood the materials used were of the same specification as when Mr Pope himself held the cabinet brief.
He added: “I think you’ll find operatives visit every day and being a good councillor like yourself why didn’t you report it to me or the officer?”
But Mr Pope replied: “I could have been an ordinary member of the gen pub and one would not know.”
Questions were also raised about the performance of Mr Lawrence’s department, after the latest quarterly performance report showed he had met only seven out of 12 performance indicators.
The document, covering the second quarter of 2017-18, showed three had not been met, while two did not fall into either category.
Only council leader Brian Long’s portfolio had a lower number of indicators met.
But Mr Lawrence argued they should be seen as aspirations, rather than targets.
He said: “Things change all the time. People are not machines. We work extremely hard to try to do things.”