NEARLY 90 per cent of public toilets in one area of Gwent were rated as “good or excellent” in a council survey. 

Inspections were made of 16 public toilet blocks with the lowest mark awarded for their condition being “fair”. 

Of the blocks inspected eight are owned by Monmouthshire County Council with a further eight owned by town and community councils which have increasingly taken responsibility for public toilets, from the unitary authority, since 2010. Two toilet blocks are currently closed. 

There are 12 toilet blocks with disabled toilets. 

The council’s own environmental health department visited the toilets in September 2023 and 14 were judged good or excellent, which is 88 per cent of the total. Only two were judged ‘fair’. In 2022 the survey found 81 per cent of toilets either good or excellent. 

In addition to the 18 free standing toilet blocks there are at least a further 19 publicly accessible toilets in Monmouthshire in county council owned leisure centres, hub buildings and attractions such as museums. 

The ratings of the toilet blocks were reported to Monmouthshire council’s place scrutiny committee which was considering an update to the authority’s local toilet strategy, which it first produced in 2019.