A CHARGE to use town council-owned toilets will come into force in Ross-on-Wye.

Councillors agreed to spend £9,000 to install a door system to charge to use the council's public toilets.

The charge will be 20 pence at Red Meadow and Wye Street toilet blocks.

The clerk got in touch with five councils in the country to ask how much they took from a similar system, and a council in the Lake District was the only one which replied and said they made £10,000 a year.

Cllr Richard Mayo said they expect to make the money back which they spend on installing the coin operated system in two years.

He said any money made after that will be reinvested back into the toilet blocks.

Cllr Mayo said the town council took on the toilets in a asset transfer from the county council to ensure that they stayed open. But he said there is a cost involved in maintaining and cleaning the toilets, and this charge will offset some of these costs.