Council upset

ANDOVER Town Council is disappointed that a decision has been made to demolish the public toilets at George Yard car park.

There has been no consultation with the Andover community or opportunity for the public to object to the closure until this application to demolish the toilets.

Test Valley Borough Council has made a decision, which I have not been able to find in any councils’ committee papers, to close a total of 14 public toilets without proper consultation as recommended by a government white paper on the provision of public toilets.

Councillor Barbara Long, chair of ATC Planning Committee

Cause for concern

PUBLIC toilets are an important element of the infrastructure of any modern town centre.

Quality provision makes a crucial contribution to the local economy encouraging tourist and shoppers alike.

The lack of suitable toilets encourages street fouling which is both expensive to clean, and will become a bigger issue as conversions from offices to flats increases residences and decreases commercial properties in Andover town centre.

Good public toilets also give older and disabled people the confidence to leave their houses and avoid problems of isolation.

Therefore, the decision by Test Valley Borough Council (TVBC) to seek and get planning approval for the demolition of the George Yard toilets without a proper public consultation or any real effort in investigating alternatives is a major cause for concern.

Whilst we accept that TVBC has no legal responsibility to provide public toilets, I believe that when you have an asset already in place, the situation is radically different.

Demolition will remove an asset which will be hard to replace in the medium term.

The Community Toilet Scheme solution offered by TVBC is based on businesses, currently four, offering their toilets up for public use at a cost of about £50 a week to the council.

This is not much.

The experience of Andover residents and visitors has not been positive, with accessibility and public perception remaining problems.

Furthermore, evidence from similar schemes elsewhere suggests high dropout rates of over 25 per cent for businesses.

The Richmond flagship project lost 50 per cent of its businesses despite employing a council worker to manage the programme and drum up business support.

We fully support the crossparty approach of Andover Town Council who has argued persuasively that we need to consult more widely and look at alternatives.

We need to get public buy-in for any decision.

The first step is for residents to lobby their local councillors to review this decision.

The second step is to look at some of the ideas thrown up by TVBC Councillor Iris Andersen.

Luigi Gregori, chair of Andover & District Liberal Democrats

‘A step too far’

READING recently that the public toilets in the George Yard car park are to be knocked down due to drug takers abusing the toilets, is a step too far!

They will just go and annoy others in other areas of the town by doing their drugs elsewhere. All knocking these toilets down is doing is making life much harder for disabled people, the elderly, those with children and those people who have urgent needs to use a toilet when out in Andover. It’s not solving the issue!

I feel steps must now be taken to deal with the drug takers in Andover, full stop.

The way forward I think could be to start charging people to use the toilets at 50p per person, and the 50p would go towards the upkeep of the toilets, and to help pay the person who is on site while the toilets are open.

In full fairness disabled people, the elderly, and those with children should not have to pay.

It may not sound fair to many, but I think many drug users will not want to spend anything if it has to be paid for and the person on site could take charge in these decisions on who pays and who doesn’t.

The town itself is a sinking ship, and the news that the toilets will be knocked down is just proof that the town is in a very dire state.

I don’t need to go into the town’s shop situation and lack of decent shopping outlets in the town centre, but surely something can be done to save the toilets and assist those people who still visit the town without having those in need of toilets having to walk to the bus station to use a toilet or in fact go into pubs where some people alone may feel uncomfortable doing so.

JS, Andover. Full name and address supplied.