Merbein South community pushes for public toilet

Could this be Mallee’s most unused dunny? Pee’d off Merbein South locals call for better toilet access to stop people having a slash in the open.

Busting Merbein South locals and long-haul travellers are relieving themselves in bushes and vineyards and causing a “health risk” because of the limited open hours of a toilet at a community hall.

Mildura councillors Ian Arney and Glenn Milne are pushing for the toilet at the Merbein South Community Hall & Recreation Park — which used to be the Merbein South Primary School — to be open at all times.

“Certainly there is some use of the toilets as they are but people are going around the back of them, and I think that’s a health risk, ” Mr Milne said.

The toilets at Merbein South Community Hall & Recreation Park are only open when the hall is open.

“The people that work there have been requesting of me for quite a while that council please look into providing public toilets,” councillor Ian Arney said

“It’s a simple request I’m making on their behalf to provide that community with public toilets.”

Councillor Glenn Milne said it was a health risk to have people urinating in the bushes surrounding the hall.

“There is a call from the community, and it’s up to us to respond to the community out there, they don’t ask for a lot,” he said.

The nearest public toilet is a basic, long drop several kilometres further along the Sturt Highway.

The president of Merbein South Hall and Recreation Park, Ian Shaw, said they didn’t have the capacity to manage the toilets being open all the time.

“It’s for the convenience of the public, we do have quite a few visitors that call in about the toilet,” he said.

“It does happen occasionally, that people want to stop for lunch and want to use the toilet, it’s by no means an everyday occurrence but it does happen from time to time, people are generally pretty good,” he said.

“We could open them, but it means we’ve got to supply them with toilet paper and clean them too,”

“We’re just a volunteer committee so we don’t really have the capacity for that.”

The motion to put together a report on the feasibility of making the toilet available at all hours was unanimously passed.