TOWN taxpayers may be faced with shelling out extra cash to provide a bit of a 'relief fund' – to ensure two of Dartmouth's public loos stay open during the winter.

South Hams Council is looking at saving £80,000 a year by closing many of its public toilets across the district for three months of the year covering the winter period.

But it has made it clear that if local communities can come up with alternative ways of funding the 'at risk' loos, then they could stay open.

The public toilets at Dartmouth Castle, on Coronation Park and at Manor Gardens could all be at risk in the cost cutting exercise likely to come in effect next year.

But now worried town councillors are looking at building at least £5,000 into their budget for the coming financial year to try to ensure that the loos at the Castle and Coronation Park can remain open all the year around.

The town council's finance committee chairman Francis Hawke said: 'The view of the town council is that the public toilets at Coronation Park and the castle are important to the tourism in the town and are used by the community and we felt that they should not be closed.'

But he said that while the toilets in Manor Gardens are well used during the summer they could be closed for the winter months.

South Hams Council has claimed the district provides more public loos per head of population than any other council in the country and keeps more of them open all year around than anywhere else in Devon.

The council is looking at closing at least 31 public toilets for the winter – and that includes those in Kingswear, Dittisham, Stoke Fleming and Stoke Gabriel.

Cllr Hawke said he had attended a meeting involving South Hams Council officers and various parish representatives a fortnight ago to discuss what was happening with the public toilets.

He said that things were still not clear other than the district council was determined to save the £82,000 a year on it public toilet bills.

The most expensive are the Royal Avenue Gardens toilets, which cost a whopping £52,000 a year to keep open. The cheapest are the Manor Garden loos which cost £6,700 a year.

The Dartmouth Castle toilets cost £14,000 a year, which is more expensive that the park-and-ride toilets, at £13,000 and the Coronation Park loos at £8,800.

Cllr Hawke said that figures had shown the public toilets are among the most used in the district.

'They are among the top half of all the toilets in the district,' he told councillors.

That, he said, was based on the recorded water flows through the public loos.

He said: The options seem to be whether the parishes want to take on the costs or go 50/50 with the parishes or involve private organisations. I don't think they really know at the moment.'

But if it came to the town council giving to contribute to the costs, he said it was proposed to put a 'small sum' in the local budget to 'cover that eventuality'.