On the door of the now-closed disabled toilet is a notice from NE Derbyshire District Council which says that because of a need to balance the budget "tough decisions have had to be made" and it has been decided that all the nine public toilets which the council managed and which cost taxpayers £130,000-a-year to run, have been closed from April 2008.

The notice said that it regretted the closures but felt the need to maintain 'frontline services". It also said that the council was facing a £100,000 bill to bring some of the toilets up to accessibility standards required under the Disability Discrimination Act.

But public toilets ARE "frontline services," particularly for disabled people! Surely this is blatant discrimination by the council against disabled people, going right against the spirit of the Act.

On Saturday evening I was in the lay-by copying out the council's notice with a view to writing to the Derbyshire Times. While I was there a car pulled into the lay-by, where — at both entrances — public signs still proclaim that there are toilet facilities, including for disabled people. The gentleman in the car was a disabled person and had hoped to use the toilet which used to be there and used to be part of the RADAR Key Scheme.

I feel very strongly that the council is letting down disabled people in particular, but ALSO everybody else in the NE Derbyshire district.

I understand there has been an increase in the number of disabled toilet facilities in Beijing. I strongly urge the council to reopen, as soon as possible, the public toilets which have been closed in NE Derbyshire.

RICHARD WRIGHT,
29 Woodland Way,
Old Tupton,
Chesterfield.

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