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Blairgowrie public toilet rescuers plan gift shop and information centre

Locals feared Blairgowrie public toilets would close; instead they're facing a bright new future thanks to local volunteers.

By Morag Lindsay

February 26 2025, 6:00am

Blairgowrie volunteers collected the keys to the town's public toilets from council leader Grant Laing, third from left, last year. Image: Clare McMicking/CraicN Communications

Volunteers who saved a Perthshire town’s public loos from closure have big plans for their future.

The team behind the Blairgowrie public toilets would like to add a gift shop and local information centre to the building.

They have now been awarded government funding to carry out a feasibility study.

It means they can now hire an architect to come up with drawings and costings for the plan.

Blairgowrie public toilets exterior — Blairgowrie public toilets could be getting a gift shop. Image: Google Maps.

The public toilets proposal is one of four projects led by the Blairgowrie and Rattray Development Trust which are sharing in a £34,000 award from the Scottish Government’s Rural Community-Led Local Development Fund.

Supporters say it could help to safeguard the loos’ long-term future.

Blairgowrie public toilets are team effort

Locals, working with the trust, took on responsibility for the town’s facilities last summer.

The block was one of a number of staffed public toilets being offloaded by Perth and Kinross District Council.

The trust struck a deal to lease the block in the town’s Wellmeadow from the council.

Group of people with cleaning equipment in front of Graham Environmental Services building in Blairgowrie — Bob Swan, treasurer of BRDT, with representatives from Graham Environmental Services, one of the sponsors of Blairgowrie public toilets. Image: Clare McMicking/CraicN Communications.

This allowed the volunteers to take over the management and running of the toilets.

And a number of local sponsors stepped up to help with the running costs.

‘Everything we do is led by community’

Three other Blairgowrie schemes will share in the £34,000 funding.

The first is a project to compile the 1,200 comments and ideas captured during sessions held last year as part of the development of a Local Place Plan (LPP) for Blairgowrie and Rattray.

The document needs to be registered with Perth and Kinross Council by the end of March this year.

View of Wellmeadow park in centre of Blairgowrie. — The public toilets are next to the Wellmeadow in Blairgowrie. Image: Steve MacDougall/DC Thomson

A second project will involve a feasibility study for the re-development of the BaRI Building in the town centre into a new community venue.

Ideas include creating a purpose-built shop to house the popular BaRI Food and Refill Store, a community hall, meeting rooms and a professional standard kitchen that could support pop-up restaurants or a volunteer-run café.

And the third project is a revamp of the Discover Blairgowrie website.

It provides a platform for more than 150 local community groups and 250 businesses.

Steve Johnson, development officer at BRDT, said: “Everything BRDT does is led by the community.”