The Southport Party can report that Article 14 of the European Human Rights Act, (Strasbourg, June 1991) states that you can NOT discriminate between male and female. EU legislation now supercedes all existing British law, some of which previously allowed such discrimination; for instance, on the subject of charging for the use of public toilet cubicles but NOT for urinals.

This EU law completely alters the refurbishment and financing problems of this vital service, especially now that the Disability Discrimination Act has been recently enforced. A small charge of 20p for using any type of public toilet now becomes practical, thus helping to finance the full cost of the Council's refurbishment and maintenance programme.

In the past, Sefton Council has always used ‘a lack of funding' for the 3 decades of neglect of Southport 's public toilets. Yet this European law has been on the EU statute books for well over 10 years and nothing appears to have been done about it.

With the Freedom of Information Act about to be implemented early in the New Year, our residents and tourists alike need to know what progress has been made on the public toilet issue and what amount of public involvement in the decision making will Sefton Council be offering to the general public; because to keep this matter under wraps – is NOT an option.