Battle of the public toilets comes to an end in Turriff
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After years of battles, the fight to keep two public conveniences in Turriff permanently open appears to have been won.
Turriff Business Association have this week finalised the signing over of the town's High Street conveniences from Aberdeenshire Council, which means that once upgrades have been completed Turriff will once again have two sets of public toilets after a four year saga.
The group hope to hear next month if they have been successful in securing additional funding to bring the facilities up to standard.
Amongst the work which needs to be carried out before the toilets can be opened to the public are a full check and necessary upgrades to the electrics and new hand dryers.
To ensure the facilities are as safe as possible in light of the current pandemic, the funding will also be used to carry out a professional deep clean of all facilities, put appropriate signage in place and ensure there is a sufficient supply of PPE available.
The saga started in 2016, when Aberdeenshire Council first announced their intentions to close the public toilets in the Haughs which meant that the High Street facilities would be the only public toilets in the town.
After much local campaigning to highlight the importance of the Haughs' facilities, the Council in 2017 announced that they had overturned their decision - and would now close the High Street facilities in favour of keeping the Haughs facilities.
Discontent from the community at the Council's decision continued.
The toilets were taken over in 2018 by Turriff And District Heritage Society who own the adjoining building, with the support of a local cleaning business however they were forced to close them after continued issues with the way the toilets were being treated and the mess they were being left in by users.
Undeterred, a small number of volunteers have already come forward offering to clean the facilities when they reopen under the ownership of the business association however the group would like to get some more people on board to help out.
Volunteers will clean the facilities at the end of the day as well as being responsible for locking them up each night - staff at neighbouring Tesco have agreed to hold a key and open the toilets every morning.
Association chairman Marj Chalmers said: "We are lucky to already have a few people enlisted to help with the cleaning, but we could really use a few more helping hands.
"We are grateful to have had the opportunity to work in partnership with Aberdeenshire Council as well as with our local councillors who have been very supportive in helping us to bring the toilets back to Turriff."
Anybody interested in finding out more or joining the rota of volunteers can contact: turriffbusinessassociation@aol.com, or alternatively speak with Marj Chalmers or Rose Logan.
