THE saving of the 10 toilets looks like it will come at a price for public sector workers.

Exeter City Council needs to find an alternative way to save £60,000 to complete the requisite savings which will plug a £1m black hole in its budget.

The Liberal Democrat group has come up with an alternative that will be put to members of the executive committee at a meeting next week.

There is a national recommendation being made currently for a pay freeze on all public sector workers for the next financial year. However this has been rejected by unions and discussions and meetings about the issue are on-going at a national level.

As a result, the city council had drawn up a contingency plan within its draft budget, which covered a one per cent increase in case a pay rise was negotiated.

This has been reduced to 0.7 per cent to free up the funds needed to keep the toilets open.

Steve White, of union Unison, said: "Members are angry nationally at the fact there is no wage rise but locally we have not had a chance to discuss it.

"The only question I would have is what would happen if the national employers change their minds as they have done in the past?

"Presumably they would have to look at the toilets again.

"There are further meetings on the pay issue at a national level. Local government workers understand the reality of the situation. They live in the real world and know there is not a lot of money going around but we would expect something for the lower paid workers in particular."

The Liberal Democrats described the move as "prudent" but Cllr Pete Edwards, leader of the Labour group, said: "They are hiding a problem and not confronting it by storing trouble for the future.

"If they do get the one per cent pay rise where will they find the money from then?

"The simple thing to do would be to raise the car parking charges by about one per cent."