COUNCILLORS are under fire after cutting cleaning services and introducing charges for public toilet use.

Richmondshire District Council have cut cleaning services and introduced a 20 pence charge for using any of its 14 public toilet blocks.

Councillor John Blackie, chairman of Hawes and High Abbotside Parish Council, said: “What council would start charging to use the toilets and then cut the cleaning services?

“It is being done without any consultation and as a parish council we should not have to carry the blame.”

Visitors to Hawes will be asked to complain to the town’s community office if the public toilets at Penny Garth are found to be dirty.

A note will be placed on toilet doors in the district, absolving the cleaners of any blame and inviting complaints which would then be passed to RDC.

The last official account of the footfall statistics were published in April 2016.

The Penny Garth toilets in Hawes had the biggest usage in 2014/15 of 187,180, with the footfall for all council toilets reaching 987,659.

In summer, the toilets in Hawes are due to be cleaned twice a day, four days a week and once a day for the other three days.

In winter it is proposed they are cleaned once a day, four days a week.

In a letter to Colin Dales, RDC corporate director, Cllr Blackie said: “For as long as I have been the district councillor for Hawes and High Abbotside the toilets in Penny Garth have been cleaned twice a day.

“During my last term as leader of RDC, between 2011 and 2015, my certain knowledge was at the very height of the season, the Penny Garth toilets would be cleaned three times daily.”

The budget allocated for the project will be increased from £45,000 to £78,000 to accommodate the provision of the new door entry systems.

The council estimate £197,000 a year could be generated, but there will be a one-off cost of £68,000 to install the coin machines.

Hawes and High Abbotside Parish Councillors consider the new cleaning regime “totally inadequate for the needs of the town to provide clean public toilets for the 1,500 residents in the parish, the residents of the Upper Dales who use the town as their key service centre, and the 500,000 visitors annually who spend money as tourists, and on whom our local economy depends if we are to have a thriving local community in the future.”

Cllr Blackie added: “These changes will be detrimental to the economic and social wellbeing of the residents and businesses in the town, and of those who visit the Upper Dales as tourists.”