Snowy Monaro Regional Councillor, Nick Elliott, addressed the Council on Thursday, 15 May about the state of the Jindabyne Town Centre’s public toilet block.

Describing the Council asset as ‘disgraceful’, Cr Elliott led fellow Councillors to the public toilets just outside of the meeting place in Jindabyne, giving Councillors the opportunity to view the rest rooms first-hand.

Witnessing the poorly maintained and vandalised state of the amenities, Council CEO, Stephen Dunshea, took immediate action to get the process underway for minor touch-ups until the refurbishment which is due to take place after the winter season.

Cr Elliott said the Council project manager, Greg Thompson, was also onsite to see what could be done to get the building back to a decent standard.

“It’s disgraceful, I don’t know how many years we’ve been waiting for something to be done about this amenities block,” Cr Elliott said.

“And while I understand the bigger job won’t be done until later in the year, the fact that there are mirrors broken on the floor, toilets are in bad condition and broken tiles everywhere, isn’t a good look for us when tourists come to our town.

“Even just a fresh coat of paint would do the job for now, because currently it looks as though nobody cares about it, and something needs to be done before the busy winter season starts.”

Cr Elliott said it wouldn’t take much for Council to make the block look cared for.

“As a Council, we spend money trying to get visitors to our town year round, but then we don’t provide the basic facilities visitors needed like a clean and tidy public toilet,” he said.

As a local to Jindabyne and someone who frequents the shops in the town centre, Cr Elliott said the amenity block is something that he has always been conscious of and wanted to get rectified.

Acknowledging it isn’t all Council’s fault, as the toilet block was included in the Snowy Mountains Special Activation Precinct (SAP) plans to be a government-funded project before funding was cut and the plans re-structured, it is only recently the project has landed back on council’s agenda.

“The project got caught up in the SAP plans and it (SAP) went from a small project to a massive undertaking, which in hindsight ended up being too much, and now many projects have been abandoned by SAP,” Cr Elliott said.

“An estimated $900,000 has been allocated for the total refurbishment of the toilets, but won’t begin until after the winter season and all I am asking for is Council to use a very small portion for a fresh coat of paint and other small things to get it looking decent for winter.

“When looking at the tourism side of things in Jindabyne, Council has really got to be conscious of making sure our infrastructure throughout the entire town is as neat and tidy as we can get it and encourage all our business owners to do the same.

“We need to get Council more focused on the simple projects that don’t take a lot of time or money.

“We want to be proud of our Snowy Mountains town and with these small projects undertaken by Council, our visitors will take notice.”