City of Ballarat votes to demolish Lake Wendouree underground toilets

While the debate was one which was drawn out for a long portion of Wednesday's meeting, councillors finally settled on eradicating Lake Wendouree's underground toilets with a five-four vote.

Cr Ben Taylor, who moved the motion, said he was in disbelief the council had discussed such a matter for "this long".

"We've debated long enough; let's move on," Cr Taylor said.

Similarly, Cr Belinda Coates, who seconded, said she couldn't "see under any circumstance the toilet being retained".

"This one is unfortunately not worth saving," Cr Coates said.

City of Ballarat mayor Cr Des Hudson, who supported the motion, said such decision making by the council would re-establish it as a governing body "that gets things done".

"I get frustrated when decisions are not made; we are our own worst enemies," Cr Hudson said.

Constructed circa 1960, Lake Wendouree's underground toilet was first recommended to be "decommissioned" due to not being Disability Discrimination Act (DDA) compliant nor in line with the Crime Prevention Through Environmental Design (CPTED) and Safer by Design principles in 2015.

During this time, the council discovered through community consultation residents were either "afraid" of the cubicles or preferred not to use them.

The following year, councillors adopted a new Public Toilet Framework policy, which made this recommendation.

However, in August 2017, the City of Ballarat resolved to "defer any consideration of the demolition" of the toilet at Lake Wendouree to "allow further review of utilisation and safety issues".

Three months later, the council established the Lake Wendouree Masterplan, which highlighted to remove the bathrooms. Community consultation accompanying the masterplan garnered 1800 responses yet none made any specific submissions regarding retaining the underground toilets.

The facility was officially closed in June 2021.

This month, the council began developing a new Public Toilet Strategy, which spruiked two options in place of the existing Lake Wendouree bathrooms.

The first option is to have no toilet amenities as there are two public facilities located less than a kilometre away being at Victoria Park, about 400 metres away and at the Yacht Club, about 650 metres away.

The second alternative considers either refurbishing the current facility which would bear an estimated cost of about $300,000 - $350,000 with annual cleaning and maintenance costs of about $7000; or constructing a completely new public toilet which would incur similar costs to the refurbishment.

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However, this has been estimated to have a lower annual cleaning and maintenance fee with a starting base of about $1000.

It will cost the City of Ballarat about $80,000 to eradicate the derelict facility. They will also require a permit from Heritage Victoria before they commence any works.

The council will also seek feedback from residents through both internal and external channels with the funding to be included in the City of Ballarat's 2023/24 budget. As for the new Public Toilet Strategy, which will be shaped by "broad" community consultation, it is set to be completed by July this year.

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