A councillor is urging a community be given more time to try to save public toilets.

Kirklees Council is to close the attended public toilets in Holmfirth, Huddersfield and Dewsbury.

But Clr Nigel Patrick, Holme Valley South Conservative, says 35,000 people use the Holmfirth toilets every year.

And he says more thought is needed before they are closed, expected to be after the Tour de France in July.

Clr Patrick said: “It costs £44,000 to run the toilets per year, and they make £6-7,000 a year on them at 20p a visit.

“There’s 35,000 visits a year, and I’d bet many of them are visitors.

“The £44,000 cost includes an attendant and a vehicle... why not consider making the toilets unattended?

When Kirklees announced it would close its unattended toilets they gave the community time to take over them, but there’s been nothing for the attended toilets.”

Clr Patrick said he was in talks with the community to try to find a way to save the Holmfirth toilets, and had requested a meeting with the relevant council officer.

He added: “Will the council sell or lease them or will there be legal costs? We need to know all these things if we’re going to seriously consider taking them on, but time is short and if it takes weeks to set a meeting then time is already running out.”

He summed up: “It’s up to us to try and save them and the council needs to give us time to do that.”

A Kirklees Council spokeswoman confirmed the overall cost for Holmfirth public toilets was £44,000 which included £30,000 staff costs and £20,000 for the premises, which includes utility bills and a management agreement for Autoloo. They say it makes £6,000 a year.

The spokeswoman added: “The attendants who cover Holmfirth are agency workers so would not qualify for deployment.

It has not yet been decided when the toilets will close but the budget cut for 2014/15 is equivalent to half year cost.

“The council will consider proposals from other groups/organisations to take on the toilets if any are interested.”

Click here to take you back to more Huddersfield news.

Want to read, watch and hear more? You can download the FREE Examiner Apple App here, the FREE Examiner Android App here or you can view the paper as an e-edition on your Apple, Android or Kindle device by clicking here

To follow us on Twitter click here