ALEXANDRA PUBLIC LOOS SHUT FOR "WELLNESS REFURBISHMENT" — NOBODY KNOWS WHAT THAT MEANS
Central Otago District Council has padlocked the town's busiest dunnies for six weeks. Rail Trail season started Monday.
The public toilets in the middle of Alexandra have been closed for a "wellness refurbishment", according to a Central Otago District Council sign on the door. Nobody in town can say what that means. The council has not offered to explain.
The timing is not great. Rail Trail season kicked off this week. The town gets a few hundred cyclists a day rolling in with sore backsides and one question. Queenstown day-trippers turn up too, having escaped the selfie corridor at home. They find a padlock and a QR code. The nearest option is the New World, where staff have started charging in dirty looks!
Lorraine Beattie, 63, has lived within sight of the block for thirty years. She did not buy the wellness angle. "It's a shithouse. It doesn't need wellness. It needs a cistern that fills and a lock that shuts. Six weeks for that is a piss-take. I said as much to the mayor and he changed the subject to Blossom Festival," she said.
Kayla does the flat whites at the café across the road (and does them properly, I might add!). She said her staff loo is now the town facility. "Had a bloke from Frankton yesterday. Drove an hour, saw the sign, just stood there. Bought a muffin so he could use ours. Then his wife bought a muffin. We're making a killing and I hate it," Kayla said. Locals have started timing trips into town around bladder capacity, the way Queenstown people time grocery runs around cruise ships.
A council spokesperson told The Daily Yarn the work would deliver "a restorative environment for all users". The design was done by a Queenstown consultancy for "a figure within budget". Asked what the figure was, they said the budget was "also within budget". Asked when the loos would reopen, they said "ahead of Blossom Festival". They would not say which one.
A portaloo turned up on site Thursday afternoon. By Friday morning it was padlocked as well, with a second sign reading "under review". The QR code on the original door links to a survey about parking.
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Reader Letters
★ Garry (Halswell)
Back in my day, a public toilet was just that—a place to relieve yourself, not a session with a wellness guru! Standards have significantly slipped since we handed over to these bureaucrats. Bloody cyclists aren't happy either, and I can't blame them in this case.
wayne1987
Mate, that's not even what they said. They're calling it a 'restorative environment'. Whatever that means!
★ Margaret_F
Wellness? More like a shit show. Wouldn't have happened in 1990. Gerald would always say, 'A toilet's job is done when vacancy is intermittent!' The youth today despise simplicity.
Trev_Hornby
Ah, once again, the council with their clipboard muppets. Who came up with 'wellness refurbishment'? Meanwhile, rates keep climbing, and the blokes with actual shovels get ignored!
ropeable_dave
Exactly! It's all piss-take, the lot of it.
★ BarryBishopdale
This is classic council, always prioritising some ridiculous vanity project over basic amenities. Rail Trail cyclists deserve functioning loos, not QR codes!
couchgremlin
LOL.
KiwiKate89
Another rates increase just to cover crap like this!
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