At the Invercargill City Council infrastructure and projects committee meeting last week, council staff were instructed to canvass potential partners to provide an alternative shower option for tourists and the homeless.
Cost-cutting discussions about running the seven-day-a-week public toilets, shower and locker facilities were first raised during the council annual plan process as the shower was only being used about 12 times a month but costing council up to $200,000 a year to keep open.
Cr Leslie Soper said it had agreed during the initial discussions to only close the facility if an alternative shower facility was found by August.
Options presented by staff to council included: providing funds for an additional toilet/shower facility; partnering with city gyms to provide showers or develop a partnership with social service charitable organisations — including commissioning a purpose-built mobile shower unit for $300,000.
It was estimated a new shower/toiler installation would cost up to $370,000.
Cr Ian Pottinger said he had discussions with the owner of the city’s former railway station building who said he would be willing to discuss operating a public shower facility
"It’s in the vicinity it used to be in ... I think the budget could be increased.
"If council’s of the mind in spending $1.98m on a clock tower, then I’m sure it should be looking at a few more dollars for providing the facility our public need."
Cr Soper said she struggled to see a justification in swapping the annual $200,000 running costs in exchange for a new installation bill of $400,000 when other options were available.
Deputy mayor Tom Campbell supported Cr Trish Boyle’s "logical" suggestion to reduce the current service to hours thereby significantly reducing the operational costs.
"It seems impossible to imagine we would actually buy something for $300,000 in a truck ... it beggars the imagination that that’d be a preferred option."
Council infrastructure services group manager Erin Moogan said more than half the annual costs were for maintenance rather than operational costs.
The facility was reaching its end of life and would incur a significant cost to upgrade.
Council strategic asset planning manager Doug Rogers said Cr Boyle’s suggestion would require a significant and expensive redesign to allow the site to operate unmanned and any redesign would exceed current costs.
Cr Boyle believed it would be more effective to continue using the area rather than spending money to move it and leaving the council with the burden of repurposing the current site or the leaving city’s infrastructure empty.
— Toni McDonald
