THE vandals have won. All Redditch's public conveniences are going to be closed "because of vandalism".

At last week's council meeting, the Labour majority, supported by the two Liberal Democrat councillors, rejected a Conservative amendment asking officers to look at each public toilet separately to assess the cost of vandalism in the past year so that an informed decision could be taken on which loos could be reasonably kept open.

Obviously, this would have also taken into account whether there were other facilities available to the public in the area or not.

This sensible amendment was voted down and all public loos are now destined for closure regardless of local conditions and needs and the objections that were received from the public.

Councillor Somner maintains that keeping loos open is simply to finance vandalism but this is a weak justification for closing them en bloc and could, moreover, be applied to the new countryside centre, which has also suffered vandalism.

I sincerely hope the countryside centre will not close but this episode shows the Labour majority is lousy at listening, except when someone says something that they want to hear.

Councillor Antonia Pulsford

High Street

Feckenham