Dear Editor, If you are unfortunate enough to have had any contact with the unitary authority recently, AKA Cornwall Council, you will have realised that in almost all departments it is dysfunctional and not fit for purpose.

The latest manifestation of this in a so-called attempt to minimise costs, is the installation of £12,000/£16,000 "pay 20p-to-pee" barriers on Falmouth's Prince of Wales Pier, and Grove Place Public toilets, the latter which were built and gifted to the Falmouth townspeople by Peter de Savary as one of the conditions of his Pendennis Village planning permission.

Apart from the ongoing costs of emptying and maintaining the new coin-mechanisms, and repairing recurring vandal attacks, which we understand may now necessitate the installation and monitoring of at least four CCTV surveillance cameras, neither the male nor female Prince of Wales Pier toilets now comply with disability access requirements, as the gate width between the heavy-duty stainless steel barriers is only 530mm ie 21 inches -approximately eight and a half inches too narrow to enable wheelchair users to access the disabled toilets, which are now situated on the inside of the barriers.

To confirm this, in existing publicly accessible structures, building regulations specify a minimum disability door/entrance access width of 750mm, and the council's own organisation, Disability Cornwall, confirm their requirement for a minimum access width of 800mm with a preferred width of 850mm, and in an ideal world, 900mm.

Both the male and female Prince of Wales Pier Toilets are therefore clearly illegal, and the sooner Cornwall Council removes these barriers, and publicly acknowledges that it has wasted yet more local tax payers' money on another monumental cock-up the better.

If you wish to contact the County Council employee responsible for these installations, he is the environmental project team leader working from the Radnor Road, Scorrier offices. His name is Stephen Wood, and he is contactable on telephone 01209 614332, e-mail steve.wood@cornwall.gov.uk If you want to confirm Disability Cornwall's stance on this you can call their Hayle-based Vaughan Temby on 01736 756655, or e-mail them on info@disabilitycornwall.gov.uk So come on folks, if we all get stuck in we can surely force Cornwall Council to obey the Disability Access Laws by removing these “pay-to-pee barriers”, and in so doing also help Falmouth's struggling shop owners to attract more local customers and tourists into the town centre.

Regards, Sarah and David Culling, Falmouth