MORE than £1m has been spent on public toilets over the last eight years, the Journal can reveal.
A successful freedom of information request has revealed that maintaining all of Salisbury's public conveniences has cost the council £1.84 million since 2017. In total, since 2017, the council has been spending an average of more than £230,000 each year on all of the toilets in Salisbury.
The costs involved in running and maintaining the market place toilets alone since 2017, which have now been closed permanently, have reached £189,887, with the most expensive year being 2022-23 at £58,566. This is followed by 2021-22 at £51,918 and 2023-24 at £26,613.
For the central car park toilets, the figure since 2017 sits at £133,573.
READ MORE: Council seeks to build new toilets on Market Square as underground loos to close
In the most expensive year for the marketplace toilets, 2022-23, among the most expensive costs of maintaining them was electricity, costing £3,643.12 from July 21 to September 30 alone.
This was higher than other periods, which cost around three or four hundred pounds.
Cleaning and staffing the marketplace, central, and coach park toilets cost more than £10,000 each month in 2022, and more than £44,000 was spent on maintenance of all of Salisbury's loos across that year.
However, costs are expected to exceed these figures, as some of the transactions are listed without specifying which of Salisbury's public conveniences they relate to, so have been listed as "other/non specific" which includes figures for the likes of Victoria Park and Churchill Gardens.
It was decided in Salisbury City Council's 2024-25 budget that both the market place and central car park toilets were to close at the end of March to save money.
READ MORE: Two public toilets will close as controversial cost-cutting measure is approved
In 2023-24, in excess of £36,000 was spent on the central and marketplace toilets - not including any of the additional costs in the remaining £241,315 spent on loos that year, which are listed under "other". This was the final full year of operation before the closure.
Salisbury City Council has said that the toilet closures will save the council around £100,000 a year, after an amendment reducing that figure from £110,000, as budget documents previously said.
Both toilets have now closed, with plans put through to Wiltshire Council for a unisex above-ground block on the marketplace to use the underground facilities to be used for storage.
The accessible block is to remain open.
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