Walls public toilet given extra £10,000 by council
Spending a penny in Walls could finally be made easier when an expensive new public toilet opens up over a year after work on it first started.
However the council will have to agree spending an extra £10,000 to make it happen, after the community group behind it forgot to factor in VAT when initially submitting a request for funding.
Plans by the Waas Community Development group to build the toilet next to the Walls public hall were submitted to the council in December 2007.
A month later members of the infrastructure committee approved a grant of £59,910.75 to the development group to cover the construction costs.
The building project met with delays however, and last month the group’s secretary Iris Sandison admitted in a letter it had failed consider VAT costs in relation to the building project.
“There is no way our voluntary group can meet the projected sum outstanding, namely £10,484.38.”
On Tuesday members of the infrastructure committee agreed to recommend making up the shortfall.
The financial burden is slightly eased, however, because the capital rolling programme for public toilets in 2008/09 is facing a £656 underspend, meaning a further budget of £9,829 is required to fund the move.
