By Eric Munn

A WAVE of fury has hit Wirral Council as it plans to shut all the borough's public toilets.

The controversial moves are all to reduce council tax bills later this year.

A petition of more than 8,000 names objecting to the closure was presented to the authority on Monday night.

Members of the public waited for two hours in a packed committee room to show their disgust at the proposals.

Wirral's Unison branch officer Geoff Bradfield presented the petition and said: "Unison have a long history of working with Wirral Borough Council but we have done so on the provision that they don't touch frontline services.

"The staff are amongst the lowest paid working for the council and I have told them if the council was to close the toilets then they would be redeployed.

"I have also told them that if that was to happen then they would all probably get pay rises. But they still want to keep their jobs and make the service available to the public.

Labour's cabinet member for the environment Dennis Knowles defended the proposals.

He said he had received "nasty, cruel and vindictive" letters from the public.

Cllr Knowles said he and his wife had also received several abusive telephone calls.

He said: "I understand why people are getting so upset at these proposals and I guess as member of the cabinet I have to deal with this anger.

"It is my job to be supportive of the council officers who we respect and who have made these proposals. If cuts do not come from these proposed closures they will have to come from elsewhere in the department.

"That could mean cuts in the number of environmental health officers and trading standards officers.

"We would need to cut ten of these jobs to achieve the same savings that toilet closures would achieve.

"I believe that there are alternatives. It is time for payback so that those companies that take money off us give something back.

"Businesses need to share with us those facilities they so jealously guard.

"Let us not ask what the council can do for them, let us ask what they can do for the council."

The committee recommended that the proposed closures be deferred to a meeting of the cabinet later this month.