Pay To Pee Trial Proposed In Ashburton District

Monday, 31 March 2025, 7:42 pm
Article: Jonathan Leask - Local Democracy Reporter

Pay to use loos have been floated as a solution to combat the increasing vandalism of public toilets across Mid Canterbury.

Ratepayers footed a toilet vandalism bill of more than $30,000 over the previous two years, while loo paper thieves are targeting a number of facilities.

Ashburton District Councillor Rob Mackle raised the possibility of a trial user-pays toilets at last week’s activity briefing meeting.

“Overseas they do it, and it’s effective."

Vandalism of the toilet facilities has been "constant" during his time as councillor, he said.

He suggested introducing the user pays trial on the toilets that had the most repeated damage.

There was a spate of toilet paper thefts at various public toilet blocks in Rakaia, Ashburton, and Hinds, the meeting heard.

Council open spaces manager Ian Soper said 16 of the large rolls being taken and some dispensers damaged.

It also noted that the old Rakaia Domain toilet block continues to be targeted by vandals.

Soper said there are some user-pays public toilets throughout New Zealand and he knew of a new user-pays facility that went in near Te Anau, replacing a non-charge facility, that "ended up with mess in the close by bushes”.

Any trial would require looking at the cost of retrofitting a payment locking system to the existing facilities, Soper said.

Councillor Mackle felt the cost of vandalism would be a lot more than the cost of “sorting out a couple of locks on the door”.

Councillor Lynette Lovett said any user-pays system would have to cater to cards, not coins.

“Nobody has coins. All the tourists going through don’t have coins, children playing in parks don’t have coins so that isn’t going to work.”

Ashburton Mayor Neil Brown said a trial wasn’t necessary in Ashburton because they can watch how it plays out in a nearby Canterbury council.

He was referring to the Mackenzie District which is considering introducing user-pays toilets in high-volume tourism areas.

Introducing the user pays system would offset ratepayers funding for the cleaning and maintenance of the toilets.

The council has 42 public toilet blocks around the district.

Infrastructure and open spaces general manager Neil McCann said there is an annual budget of $7000 for public toilet vandalism.

Figures supplied by the council show vandalism at toilet blocks cost $22,924 in 2022/23, $10,778 in 2023/24 and $2,153 so far in the 2024/25 financial year.

“These costs are for bigger issues, as staff also spend time in their day-to-day duties cleaning up graffiti or broken property, and this is absorbed into general cleaning costs.

“Public conveniences overall activity has an annual operating budget of $600,630 including GST for this current financial year – that includes cleaning and maintenance.”

- LDR is local body journalism co-funded by RNZ and NZ On Air.

© Scoop Media

Local Democracy Reporting

Content from the Local Democracy Reporting (LDR) service is published by Scoop as a registered New Zealand Media Outlet LDR Partner.