A report into the financial state of Whitby's public toilets has been rejected by the town council.
The council's own working party published a report stating that the council had incurred losses of £85k from running the toilets since 2018.
But Town Mayor - Councillor Sandra Turner - says the report is missing some key data.
"The report as is, is clearly incomplete.
It's gone out in the public domain, and people have drawn conclusions from what was available within that report, and I think that Whitby Town Council needs to state loud and clear that we don't stand by the findings of that purely due to the lack of the information that was required.
The concern is that , this report has gone out into the public domain and the conclusions that have been drawn from it are incorrect because of the lack of, of complete information that was required. "
Whitby Town Council manages the public toilets on New Quay Road, Pier Road, West Cliff, the Abbey Headland, and in the Market Place, and also runs the toilets in Ruswarp.
Last year, Whitby Town Council increased the fee for using public toilets from 40p to 50p. The decision was made after a prediction that a water rate increase on the parish toilets would result in a cost increase from £15,000 to £43,000, with a projected income drop from £55,000 to £15,000.
A working group had been set up by the Town Council, to investigate issues around the operation of the toilets, but members of teh group had voiced concern that they were not able to access all the information they needed to carry out the work.
The now debunked report suggested that despite an annual income from the public toilets of between £179,000 and £228,000 a year, the town council had made a loss from the running of the conveniences for five out of the past seven years and overall had “expended an above income sum of £85,923” between 2018 and 2024.
A motion passed by the council at a meeting last month distanced the council from the findings of the report but enabled the toilets working party to continue it's work
The motion stated:
"The report as is, is received by the council. However, due to the lack of information available at the time, this council does not stand by the outcome of the report and it will be looked at further.
The working group will carry on and will receive the full information it has requested."
At the meeting a number of councillors expressed their ongoing concerns about the state of Whitby's public conveniences.
Town Councillors Amanda Smith and Heather Coughlan are both worried about the toilets.
"Currently, the state of our toilets is, really, really bad, there's hardly any of the disabled toilets that are working.
There's considerable damage, New Quay road.
There are numerous things that this council has to tackle now."
"I had to use the disabled toilet at the bandstand on Sunday afternoon. It was disgusting. It was absolutely disgusting.
And anybody knows, if you go on holiday, what's one of the things that you notice if the toilets are bad?
The town's bad."
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