Sir,
The issue of public toilet provision on the island, and indeed elsewhere in North Ayrshire, is a very serious one and the Banner front page story last week reflects that well. On your letters page, Neil Arthur makes more good points and rightly condemns local politicians for their inaction on the matter: it is certainly true that both Labour and SNP council administrations over the past year have supported this cut in the vain hope that community groups would come forward and do their work for them.
The truth is that NAC has had, as its finance director pointed out in a recent Banner statement, £73m of budget allocation stolen (she didn’t use that word, but I am) as a result of austerity policies determined by successive Tory Westminster governments. Councillors should be vociferously demanding this money back and campaigning for its return at national level as well as within the communities they represent. Instead, that £73m has disappeared down a hole – repaying bankers and funding expensive and unnecessary projects such as Trident missile replacement.