Kinlochewe stages official opening ceremony for new community run toilets on North Coast 500 route

COMMUNITY activists in a Wester Ross village which sits on one of the most popular tourist road trips in the world took matters into their own hands when the loss of public toilets loomed large.

There was an outcry and much publicity over Highland Council’s decision to close a number of public loos last year as it sought to balance its books and encourage communities to find alternative ways of providing services important to them.

Amongst those finally closed last autumn were those at Kinlochewe, a key stopping point on the North Coast 500 route which winds through a vast swathe of Ross-shire and has become a global marketing hit.

With the toilets in the village there providing important facilities for locals and the increasing number of tourists, the community decided it could not stand by and simply let them be closed.

It set up the Community Out West Trust, a community run company, to take over the management of the toilets, which were officially opened for the new tourist season on Monday this week.

Hopes are now high the facilities can be further developed in time to provide additional services to visitors.

The Trust's Mary Peart said: "For us it is really important to have them there. We get hundreds of people using it during the summer. Taking it on a temporary lease gives us a chance to see what it involved. There's actually an amazing support structure and we have got people volunteering to help. The reality for the council is that the money is just not there.

"The issue here is that there are so many more campervans on the roads now but few facilities for them and there has been a problem with fouling as a result."

It's hoped showers might be added in the future.

A small opening ceremony was staged to mark the occasion.

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