By Tyler Wright
A local resident has slammed council-owned amenities as “embarrassing” and “disgusting” while expressing concerns over the state of public toilets in Monbulk, Belgrave and Belgrave Heights’ Birdsland Reserve.
Monbulk local Leharna Black said she has reported the Monbulk public toilets to Yarra Ranges Council three times over three years, and said she has never seen anyone mop the floor of Monbulk toilets, wipe cobwebs off the walls, with the taps covered in “dirt and grime”.
“The toilet bowls don’t get cleaned, the floors don’t get cleaned, the walls don’t get cleaned,” Ms Black said.
Ms Black said the toilets stink of urine, with sanitary bins overflowing with rubbish and sanitary items, leaving the Monbulk, Belgrave and Birdsland toilets as a place of last resort.
“For older people, sometimes needing to go to the toilet can be an immediate thing [and] it’s not like they can choose to hold on,” Ms Black said.
“Having older members of their community forced to deal with that is pretty gross.”
Yarra Ranges Council’s Director of Environment and Infrastructure, Bill Millard, said the council is aware of a number of complaints made in relation to the toilets in Monbulk, Birdsland Reserve and Belgrave, which have focused on a “short supply of toilet paper and lack of external waste bins”.
“Council recently installed secondary toilet paper dispensers in these toilets, and clean the toilets regularly during the week and both days of the weekend,” Mr Millard said.
“We plan on increasing cleaning services during the peak summer season for these, and other, public toilets as we understand there is heavy demand on public toilet facilities in tourist areas.”
Ms Black raised question of whether it was Yarra Ranges Council, or the contractor’s, responsibility to clean the toilets – and to what extent they were obliged to do so.
Mr Millard confirmed an agreed scope of work has been established with a contractor through council inspection and contractor inspection programs, which includes the cleaning of “rubbish, paths, syringes, floors, walls and doors, toilet pans and hand basins, toilet bins and most importantly, reporting damage, vandalism and graffiti”.
“Yarra Ranges Council maintenance programs also support public toilet standards, this includes the support of the Council graffiti removal team,” Mr Millard said.
From Ms Black’s perspective, Yarra Ranges Council does not do what it needs to do, which is “organise to have those toilets properly cleaned”.
“They need to ensure that these toilets are properly cleaned once a week as well, not just turn up with toilet paper,” she said.
“They either need to employ a different party to do this, or they need to require the existing contractor to add this to their schedule. But it can’t be left the way that it is.”
