Amble inconvenienced
Northumberland County Council appears to have spent too many pennies, leaving the public in Amble waiting in a queue.
Despite an announcement last spring that the county council had approved £1.35m over three years to refurbish all their public toilets, increasing costs and the extent of works carried out so far have caused delays, meaning Amble will not see refurbishment work this winter as promised.
Readers may remember The Ambler was told that work would be carried out on both Amble’s public toilets this winter. When we asked for an update, a spokesperson told us that the whole project is now being reassessed during this year’s budget.
The spokesperson said: “The programme to improve all 54 public conveniences in Northumberland has delivered a number of improvements so far and the quality of refurbishments has been well received throughout the programme. However, achieving those good standards has taken longer and has been more expensive than anticipated due to the comprehensive nature of the works required and the inflationary pressures in the building trade.
“Both inflation and building costs have slowed our programme but, unlike many other councils, we have spent very significant amounts of money on our public toilets improvement and cleansing so far, and we will be looking at the final detail of the programme going forward, including Amble, once the budget process is complete.”
Anna Williams