03/02/2013 Sunday Politics South

In the south, more or more councils are thinking about closing public

Apology for the loss of subtitles for 2418 seconds

toilets. What other health issues? Welcome to Sunday Politics South.

My name's Peter Henley. On today's programme:

How taking a comfort break is about to get a lot harder. Councils have

no statutory obligation to provide public loos and many of them are

now saying they'd rather spend their pennies elsewhere.

First, we meet Richard Williams, the Labour leader of the

Southampton council, and Always Goldsmith, the Conservative member

from West Sussex council. -- Louise Goldsmith. Richard, you were a

democracy Dodger according to Eric Pickles. I think he is one himself.

He says localism is the way forward then castigate people for making

decisions locally. The he tells local authorities to cut back on

having drinks at meetings, but his biscuit and drinks bill this

expensive. He Louise Goldsmith, do you think it is a cynical move for

a council to go for 1.99 or 1.95? do not comment about what other

councils at doing. The we are very pleased with the way we are. The we

have delivered what Eric has asked us to. Other Conservative a

authorities are going for a bit of an increase, otherwise you are

cutting back on services. We have delivered it savings. This year has

been tight. It has been an ambition to keep our council tax as low as

possible, and we are delivering. it is optimistic talk, savings

rather than cut. If you look at the value of the pound in 2009, it is

now down to grow 84 p -- down to about 84p. Her it is still below

RPI and CPID. -- CPI. The if you have a referendum, it is getting on

for a million pounds. It is an expensive exercise. You do not have

to have a referendum because you have the elections. At slickly.

do you think it will be recognised you have made savings and done the

right thing by this coalition government, all will people look at

what they think has effectively cuts? A so I think we have

protected 80 per cent of our services in West Sussex. We made a

pledge to allow residents. They have tight times and they expect to

pay as little as they can. We are living on that promise. The From

October this year, the Government wants housing benefits to be paid

direct to tenants not their landlords. It's part of the new

Universal Credit, and according to the Government, it'll encourage

people to manage their own budgets in the same way that other

households do. But according to a survey for the National Housing

Federation, 29% of people living in social housing are expected to

struggle with their rent and could end up in debt. Kevin Williamson is

from the National Housing Federation and joins me now.

Will we how did you come up with at 29 per cent figure? For a we had

some work done by a group, who interviewed tenants. A lot of those

tenants were low income budgets, used to working on weekly budgets.

And that enables them to have the flexibility to rob Peter to pay

Paul at the end of the week. Under the new system, payments will be

made monthly, in arrears and direct to tenants. We know that about half

of people on housing benefit are quite concerned that if they get

the money directly themselves, they will fall behind with the rent. We

think it would be wise if the government introduced a bit of

flexibility and allowed some people to opt in to having their rents

paid direct to the landlord. that was their choice, they could

make their own arrangements. So does social housing organisations

would like to know. There have been some pilot schemes, there was one

in Oxford, have people had to give a hip so on receiving the money

themselves as a result of that? Deraa interesting findings. It was

published last week -- there are interesting findings. Housing a

associations are expecting rent arrears to increase by 50 per cent

as a result of these reforms. That is a quarter of a billion pounds

increase in rent arrears, which will have an impact on some housing

associations. The other finding days, as millions of pounds are

being invested, the associations are finding that the level of

awareness about his benefit changes is very low. A lot of these changes

are coming in in April. It is quite a concern. * Always Goldsmith, the

idea is self-reliance. Do you support that -- Louise Goldsmith.

The exactly. It is about helping people on the road to getting back

into work. The government have done several pilot across the country.

It has been intensive to get people into accepting and managing it. The

results are good. He there are some areas where people are finding it

difficult and we must work with them. Now is the time of people

taking control, managing their money. You were saying they could

be more empowered the but there could be more flexibility?

National Housing Federation thinks there are some good things about

the reforms in terms of getting people into work. I would take you

up on the issue of about the demonstrator projects. The results

are consistent with the warring result I gave out earlier. --

worrying results. When we load on top of fate that different benefit

changes that are coming, the real terms welfare cut there was

announced at the end of the year, there are big unknowns in how these

things come together and the impact on the community. We are right not

to be complacent. A sphere of the unknown. I used scaremongering? --

are you scaremongering? There are six pilots. The results are highly

varied. The average increase in areas across those pilots is about

60 per cent, so that is even worse than the figure I gave you earlier.

The it is not scaremongering. There are things that government cannot

do to ease the transition to the new arrangements. They do have to

start listening to these issues around design of the reforms and

implementation. The you want to see flexibility as well? Or yes. The

this is going out to all our tenants now. Do you think and

pouring people will be a good thing? We have to let people know

this is happening. We cannot change it. Not letting people know about

the changes is a mistake. Mike Morey -- might worry is that mixed

messages at getting out. The we want to Npower people -- we want to

Npower people. I think there has been some public research on pre-

paid cards. That may be a useful option. The whole thing is to help

people on the road to independence. A lot of people have not had backed

independence. It will take time. I think taking it over a period of

time is the right way. Spending too much at the moment the, well people

have less in their pocket overall? The yes. There are so many aspects

to this conversation. If we wanted to reduce housing benefit costs,

you would tackle a housing crisis we have in this country. Until we

tackle that, we will have housing benefit costs that are high. In the

last three years, the number of working people that need housing

benefit to support their costs has increased by it is six per cent?

is a Bill that will have to be reduced. -- 60 per cent. Thank you

for coming in. There are We've all been there. You're out shopping in

town, get caught short and have that panicky moment before you spot

the sign that means blessed relief - public toilet this way. Well, in

future, you may have to just cross your legs and hope, because cash-

strapped councils all over the south are looking at closing down

some or even all of their public loos. As Paul Greer has discovered,

a lack of conveniences can be, well, inconvenient.

What do they say? Find a penny, pick it up, and all the day, you'll

have good luck. Unless, of course, you ever want to try and spend it.

Locals in Ventnor on the Isle of Wight will tell you that back in

the '70s, there were 13 public toilets in the town, but today all

but one are closed. # Where can I go? #. Despite being one of the

UK's top tourist destinations, the public loos on the island has

fallen by around 40% in just three years. And it's a similar tale in

most of our towns and cities. Councils don't have to provide

public loos. With cuts being demanded from Whitehall, if it's

not a statutory service, then it's at risk. Dave Small says finding a

loo on the island is getting harder and harder. Gradually, the county

council is seeing to it that they're all slowly disappearing.

They think people don't notice if things happen slowly. But people

live a long life. Over ten years you can look back and say, "Oh,

that was there once", or, "Oh, I wish we had that still." Toilets

are one of the main things that are going. You can't find one. There

are lots of street signs saying "Toilets" but when you go for them,

they're a house or wall, they're not toilets. # Where can I go? #.

Here in Portsmouth, the council is proposing to close more than half

the public toilets across the city in an effort to save hundreds of

thousands of pounds. Currently in Portsmouth, we spend over half a

million pounds a year providing public loos around the city, but I

think we can probably do it better and smarter. The reality is, this

year I have to make �17 million worth of cuts because the

Government has withdrawn funding. We have to look at everything. Some

things, like children in care, people with real disabilities, we

have to protect those. We'll try to keep as many public loos in

Portsmouth open as we can. People are being asked what they make of

the plans for fewer loos. We've come to visit Portsmouth. We know

where the toilets are, and if they cut them by half, I think I might

be in a bit of trouble! You can't find public toilets these days.

It's one of the essential things of life, isn't it? People need toilets

if they're out all day, don't they? So, it's obvious, keep them open,

isn't it? We walk a lot every day, so if you're out all day, what do

you do? What do you do? Exactly. So don't close them. Ever since Queen

Victoria was on the throne, public toilets have been part of the

landscape in our towns and cities. As more and more vanish, there are

voices warning of a risk to public health. I don't think there are

councils anywhere who want to be doing this, particularly in

metropolitan, urban areas, where there are concentrations of people.

They know the dangers. Don't forget, environmental health services are

also being cut at the same time, so standards of public health are

being trimmed away by the day. It won't be long before we're throwing

our slops out of the window and shouting gardyloo! In the short

term, more public toilets across the south look set to close as

councils struggle to make savings. Finding a loo that's open will more

The and and and I suppose you have to spend a penny to save a penny --

I suppose you have to spend a penny to save a penny. These toilets have

become vandalised. They needed to be kept going. We have seen

closures for many years across the country. We worked for the private

sector to swap advertising and bus shelters to bring in some public

toilets. They were paid tanners. is important for tourist areas.

Very much. In Southampton, we had to make savings. We have the same

as over the next few years. Sooner or later, we end up on a graph of

doom. As they were saying, the feeling his, people will not notice

if these are taken away. I of course people will notice. People

will notice more and more services being reduced or cut back or

completely closed. Inflation is still there. There are other things

you could surely make economies on. But biscuits have gone, I'm afraid.

We try to prioritise services based on need and public safety, and

safeguarding children and adults. To public safety might be an issue

here. I know we laugh about it. The British Toilet Association say

toilet has closed every day since the coalition started. Everyone has

to contribute towards the savings to pay off that there. -- pay off

the debt. The it is not an easy decision. A lot of people are

looking at cleaning contracts and things like that. People expect a

high level of hygiene, and says they should. Some places, some

people have said, we will open a our toilets so. A lot of people are

helping out. I would say it is a slippery slope book that is another

upon. I could set authorities are not flush with money. It however,

it is a serious issue. What will the answer they? Sweeney to make

sure our money is spent effectively. -- will need to make sure. People

on low incomes are having to face up to a problems. Millionaires are

getting tax cuts. Those priorities are not right. The that is

completely ridiculous. It shows the scale of the problem. The DEC came

from your administration, not ours. But it is worse under yours than it

was under hours. We are reducing the deficit, but we picked it up

from you. A deficit is getting worse! We will leave it there. Now

our regular round-up of the political week in the south in 60

seconds, and this week it's all about not everything being what it

seems. When is an ambulance not an

ambulance? When it's part of a queue. We heard this week a record

number are having to stay at hospitals for up to two hours as

their patients wait for treatment. The whole system from the point

where you call an ambulance to the point where you leave hospital is

completely overwhelmed. They're renaming parts of Fareham

in Hampshire. Local people have a month to dream up a name for the

new development to the north of the town.

Loyalties were blurred at PMQs. East Hampshire's Damian Hinds

loyally backing giving childminders more children, but South Dorset's

Richard Drax turning on his own side over search and rescue

helicopters. Repeated requests so far have been ignored, and I

would've thought a visit would be at the least curteous and wise.

When is a Government green scheme actually self-help? When volunteers

roll out the insulation. Reading Council have bought materials for

draught-proofing and local people Is that us like a good plan. Big

Society, getting people involved. Absolutely. We are going ahead with

a Wood Green deal. I think it is exciting. The -- we are going ahead

with the green a deal. The it is the opportunities are there. For it

is a terrific chance. You pay it back from the savings you make in

the electricity bills? That's crack. The interest rate looks high. The

interest rate is being set. Over the long term, I think it is really

good value. One thing is for sure. The price of electricity and gas is

going to go up. Do you think the green deal will work? I have great

reservations. Why would you borrow money at six per cent when you can

borrow it for less? I am supportive of what is being done in terms of

the Environment. A cross-party, it is not a party political thing, I

hope the Greens in Brighton get involved as well. We only have to

procure the services of a partner wants rather than 15 times. It will

hope to bring more jobs and opportunities into our area.