Charging visitors to use toilets at landmark Staffordshire attraction put forward

Charging people to use toilets at Tamworth Castle grounds has been raised as a possible way of tackling frequent vandalism.

This comes as the state of the castle grounds play area and toilets came under scrutiny at a recent meeting at Tamworth Borough Council. 

The all-inclusive playground at the castle was opened in 2021 and features equipment for all ages and abilities. Some of the features include swings, a wheelchair accessible roundabout, climbing walls and slides.

The grounds also include free public toilets and a water filling station which is frequently used by park users and runners at the weekly parkrun. The toilets are routinely vandalised, with reports of them being blocked with house bricks.

At a recent council meeting Reform UK councillor Samuel Smith asked what is being done about the poor state of the playground and toilet facilities. He raised concerns over graffiti which has appeared and a number of other issues including a swing which has been missing for more than a year.

He said: “The castle grounds play area was a £325,000 investment and opened only five years ago. Yet the council’s quarter three financial health check showed a £134,000 play area refurbishment budget with just £34,000 forecast to be spent and £99,000 identified for reprofiling into this year.”

Council leader Carol Dean said: “The play has a weekly tidy-up by the castle team but I’m told what appears to have happened recently is that there was some heavy rain which washed mud and debris into the play area which was cleaned up as soon as possible.”

The council leader said she had noticed issues with the toilets at parkrun events and has spoken to senior people at the council to tackle the issue. The council leader said she had no issue taking her grandchildren to the park.

Speaking on the issues with the toilet, Councillor Nova Arkney, portfolio holder for infrastructure and local economy, commented that the biggest challenge facing the toilets is the frequent vandalism, however, repairs are made quickly.

She said “Every effort is made to keep the castle grounds toilet in a clean and good working order. There is a limited cleaning service resource available and this is no longer permanently site based.

“There are some gaps in the cleaning service, however, the biggest problem is unfortunately vandalism. It remains an issue that leaves the facility out of order. As and when acts of vandalism are identified they are reported to our repairs contractor who attends to them as quickly as possible.”

The council leader added that a number of solutions to the problem have been talked about including CCTV and the option of charging people to deter vandalism but insisted that this was not an option she wanted implementing.

She added: “I’ve been raising the problems with the loos in the castle grounds for quite a while now. We’ve talked about several options about CCTV and about what can be done but you can’t have CCTV in the loos to see who is taking the house bricks in there.

“As Councillor Arkney said there is a regime there to make sure things get done as soon as possible. I do know in the reports I’ve had that we struggle to get cleaners but we are doing our best.”

“We will not leave this. This is something I’ve asked for a complete report on to see just what the options are. We don’t want to take any draconian measures on it such as charging people to go the toilet, which could be an option. We have to do something about trying to make sure that facility is there.”