JoppaToilets-GarethBarwell-1.pdf

Update 29/08/15 (Reply from Gareth Barwell)

Hi Geoff

Many thanks for your email and the attached letter.

The decision to close the Joppa was not one that was taken lightly, and we are very aware of the importance of Portobello and it’s beach to the local community and Edinburgh as a whole.

The saving of £300k per annum has to be made to help the Council achieve a balanced budget. In the coming years, the pressure on this budget will increase further.

In some areas of the city we have had to close the sole public convenience for that area. In the case of the Portobello/Joppa it was accepted that we needed to maintain a god public convenience provision to support the beach. However, the provision of three public conveniences in the area, and the lower usage of the Joppa toilet, meant that the closure of Joppa was presented as the most viable option to meet the saving whilst not compromising toilet facilities for beach users and members of the public.

I acknowledge your point regarding the consultation conducted by the Community Council, and I understand that officers fed back at the time that we could not use this data as it did not mirror the city wide consultation and contained more leading questions that were not compatible with the overall consultation.

In my role as an officer, I often have to handle sensitive issues such as this particular matter. I have to ensure that the Council’s financial and legal interests are protected, whilst ensuring that our actions have as little adverse impact on our residents, business and visitors as possible.

In relation to Joppa, the provision of public toilets in the Portobello beach area also has to be weighed up against the overall provision across the city as a whole. It is for this reason, alongside the other criteria used, that the difficult decision has had to be made to close Joppa.

At the risk of mentioning this, I would like to say that I regularly visit Portobello with my family (although may have to re-visit that strategy going forward). I appreciate, and value, the importance of this area to everybody and do not wish to see it suffer any detriment to it’s overall reputation or the loss of a Seaside Award.

I genuinely feel that through joint work between the Community Council, ourselves as the Council, and any other parties that wish to be involved, we can still make the improvements to the area that local residents wish to see. I have instructed members of my team to undertake an assessment of the Pipe Lane facility with a view to improving the appearance of this facility in time for next seasons opening – this has been based on the feedback from Keep Scotland Beautiful in relation to the Seaside Award for Portobello.

To summarise, I am afraid that the closure of the facility will have to continue as planned. We will continue to work with Lothian Buses to arrange for lease arrangements and, as a result, disabled access to be maintained at this location as soon as possible. We will also continue to liaise with Keep Scotland Beautiful to ensure that we do all that we can to maintain the Seaside Award for the fantastic beach that we have at Portobello.

Kind regards

Gareth

Gareth Barwell | Acting Head of Environment | Environment | Services for Communities | Waverley Court, 4 East Market Street, Edinburgh, EH8 8BG | Tel: 0131 5295844  | email:Gareth.Barwell@edinburgh.gov.uk

Update 31/08/15 (Reply from Lee Kindness)

Hi Gareth, at no point did any member of Council staff feedback to Portobello Community Council that our response could not be used. Instead we were thanked for the response. I would also take issue with your statement that our consultation included leading questions. I firmly do not believe that to be the case.Regardless, our response had around 250 comments from individual members of the public included. When running a consultation it is critical you consider all responses, not just those submitted in the narrow format proscribed.

Portobello Community Council are doing a programme of work with the Scottish Community Development Centre (SCDC), including working on a couple of case studies. The SCDC publish the National Standards for Community Engagement – I think if you measure the toilets consultation against those national standards you will find it falls well short.

The consultation was a box ticking exercise, conducted from the desk. There was no attempt to go out and meet local groups, to talk to the general public. There was no consideration given to the wide range of important themes identified from responses – these were simply collated, but not truly considered. The report produced was opaque – given no information on why the selected toilets had been picked. It’s the sort of consultation that only serves to annoy those who took part and turn them off engaging in the future.

It’s encouraging that you’re hopeful that collaboration in the future will be fruitful. But it’s regrettable that didn’t happen during this consultation.

I appreciate that hard decisions need to be made. It’s unfortunate that strategically the Council has mandated those cuts are to services such as toilet provision, and other important areas, while cash is still freely flowing to other projects (for example more than £1M to relay setts in Portobello when most would rather see the road more economically relaid with asphalt).

Everyone knows that staffing costs are the main cost in the toilet provision. It’s incredible that this hasn’t been a central point in investigating how the cost of the service could be reduced, while maintaining service to the public. This could be addressing work practices, outsourcing the cleaning, or having half the number of staff covering same number of toilets. Observing the current staff work practice it’s clear they could cover more toilets – there are not many jobs where you get paid to sleep in your van (very common at the Joppa toilets)!

And don’t worry – you’re still very much welcome to Porty!

Thanks/L
Vice-chair Porty Community Council

Update 31/08/15 (Reply from Gareth Barwell)

Hi Lee

Many thanks for your email.

We will ensure that communication and consultation continue to be in place with yourselves and other key stakeholders going forward, in relation to any of the areas of work within my service, or within the Council for that matter.

At no point would we wish to see Portobello, or any other part of Edinburgh, adversely affected if this could be prevented. In this particular case, whilst I acknowledge the level of concern from the Community Council and residents in the area, I believe we have delivered a valuable saving whilst leaving an adequate public convenience provision that will support the beach and the local economy.

We have had feedback from Keep Scotland Beautiful today to say that the closure of Joppa will not affect the current Seaside Award for Portobello.

I take on board your comments regarding staffing, and will pass these on to the manager of the team. We take any potential disciplinary issues seriously and investigate them thoroughly. If you have any further details on recent examples, or should you witness any incidents of this kind going forward, please feel free to contact me directly.

As mentioned in my previous email, we will commencing a survey of the Pipe Lane facility and identify what aesthetic improvements can be made for next season. Hopefully we can counter the negative view surrounding the loss of the Joppa facility with a positive relating to Pipe Lane.

Finally, as a side note, I would like to add that I visited the ‘Busk on the Beach’ event on Saturday. It was a fantastic event, which was very enjoyable. Credit to all of those involved in arranging the event, as well as the variety of musicians and groups that performed. I very much look forward to the event next year.

Kind regards
Gareth

Gareth Barwell | Acting Head of Environment | Environment | Services for Communities | Waverley Court, 4 East Market Street, Edinburgh, EH8 8BG | Tel: 0131 5295844  | email: Gareth.Barwell@edinburgh.gov.uk