Sefton Council has already been fined £10,000 on Health and Safety grounds for NOT providing adequate toilet facilities for some of their frontline workforce. Subsequently Sefton’s Leisure Services Department was instructed by the Heritage Lottery Fund Director from its North West office to upgrade the Hesketh Park user facilities including the public toilets. Only by so doing could they come in line with the updated requirements of the £1.9million improvement programme grant they were then offering.
This documented 2003 agreement was accepted by the Council as part of the deal which included the refurbishment of the 2 Victorian toilet blocks, neglected for over 30 years, one in Park Rd and the other in Park Crescent.
Under this agreement, refurbishment started in 2005, with a number of female toilets being made available at Park Road, but only partly open to the public. These are now located behind a gated works entrance and are closed at 3.30pm each working day. They are also, of course, closed at weekends and Bank Holidays when park visits are at their highest level.
The Park Crescent block is currently being refurbished, but its original capacity appears to have been reduced by 50% even though park visitor numbers have dramatically increased with the new children’s area now being fully used. Some of our members have campaigned for over 20 years about the poor administration of these facilities and even in 2005 this has not been fully resolved. Our concerns were not only for full and adequate toilet provision for the public but also for similar provision for any park employees to that provided for Sefton employees at Southport Town Hall. The failure of the Council to provide basic toilet facilities has, even in recent times, created an intensive local campaign on the subject and has also attracted the £10,000 fine - this, we believe, has been caused by their sloppy administration over many years.