Police are investigating a fire that destroyed a public toilet block at Christopher Johnson Memorial Park near the Kingston Beach dog beach overnight.
The damage was reported to police around 7:45am on Wednesday, after the toilet block was found destroyed.
It is the second toilet block in the Kingborough area to be damaged in the space of a month after two teenagers were dealt with under the Youth Justice Act over a deliberately lit fire next to the Snug Beach Caravan Park in August.
Kingborough Council candidate Will Perry said the ruined facilities were a hit to families, dog walkers and visitors.
“It’s a senseless act of destruction,” he said.
“Unfortunately, it’s no longer an isolated incident.”
Perry wants the council to look at what other councils are doing, including the West Coast Council, which uses a QR code after-hours check-in system.
Under that system the toilets lock automatically after a certain hour and users have to authenticate themselves to get in.
He said the West Coast Council had reported a substantial drop in vandalism since bringing in the system.
“It strikes a balance between keeping facilities open and accessible for legitimate use, but also creates accountability and a deterrent,” he said.
Perry said he would push for the change if elected in October.
“If there’s a technology solution available, I think we should be looking at that with, with urgency,” he said.
Acting mayor Christian Street said restricting access and cutting flammable items from community assets was only part of the answer.
“There’s a deeper societal issue here about why these things keep happening that we need to deal with and council’s only part of that conversation, not all of it,” he said.
Street said the council had to weigh protecting community assets against keeping them usable and pleasant.
“Sometimes we can go too far with that and make them unusable,” he said.
Police and fire investigators are still working to determine what happened.
