A rural flush

We chatted with, Mary Peart, Manager at Kinlochewe Community Toilets to discuss her experience running an exlocal government-owned public toilet in a rural Scottish village.

How did you get involved with the community toilets?

Back in 2018, the Highland Council closed a lot of toilets, including Kinlochewe. The message was ‘if you want them open, do something about it’ – so we did and we haven’t looked back since!

What was that process of taking ownership like?

Other organisations have reported nightmare situations, but for us it was brilliant. We just had to show that we were viable and had the support of the local community – which was very easy to do since Kinlochewe public toilets are a big ‘stopping off’ point for those travelling to Inverness or Dingwall.

What is your overall experience of running a public toilet?

I’ve become a toilet bore but it’s actually been great! The learning curve was massive, I can’t help thinking that with so many companies now taking over public toilets, there ought to be more transfer of information and sharing of experience.

It was a big challenge when we went into Covid lockdowns because a lot of the income just dried up, then suddenly, everything opened again and we were overrun because we’re in a stunning area of Scotland’s NC500. Now we’re more settled and have been able to gain funding from a variety of local and national grants that are helping us with plans for improvements.

What additional challenges does the rural area bring?

One example is people tend to not have coins anymore and want to pay online but it’s not a viable or affordable solution for us. Another issue is recruiting staff, it’s not a very attractive job and our demographic is largely retired people. One of my worries for the longer term is volunteer fatigue. The actual handson involvement is quite small and that’s made even more challenging due to the sparsity of our population.

What are your feelings about the responsibility being shifted from local government onto the community?

Although I’m glad we’ve done this, my worry is you end up getting a proliferation of little companies like ours, but how sustainable are we in the long term? It’s a shame they can’t fund them fully, but they just can’t. So, the reality is that we need to work together to make sure they stay open and we do get a small monthly income from the council.

Why do you feel like this charity endeavour is a worthy cause?

Need, essentially. We’re an ageing community and a lot of people need to use those facilities. We also have one of the few accessible toilets in the area that you can drive up to, and for that reason, some people come specifically to us. To me it’s not charity per se, it was a need that needed to be addressed in my local community.

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