Dear Editor,

I've just read finished reading last week's Advertiser, and I note you are inviting comments on the new Masterplan.

As I've indicated in the 'pop-up' shop in Bridge Street and also on the museum blackboards, we need public toilets in Andover if we are to attract footfall from both residents and visitors.

Although there is one casual mention of this in the Masterplan, this does nothing to indicate that it is important, and where are these toilets going to be when we are trying to attract people into the town? Perhaps the paper could find out with your contacts at TVBC.

When we had toilets in the George Yard carpark, these were very quickly demolished despite a huge public outcry; anyone who has tried to book one of the civil engineering companies would know that these companies are very busy and need to be booked weeks in advance, so this would seem to indicate that the Council had already decided against keeping the facilities and had already booked this work in ages before the so-called 'public consultation' took place. The loos in the Borden Gates carpark are also still closed - why is this, and why can't the Council employ an attendant as they do in Salisbury and other towns rather than making the rather feeble excuse that a minority of drug addicts are the problem?

Society's needs in this respect are varied: as Shearings and other coach holiday companies used to collect customers from George Yard carpark, the toilets which then existed in the carpark were an ideal opportunity for older customers to use these before boarding the coach. This is obviously no longer possible.

A friend in a wheelchair has today told me that very few of the existing toilets in the town are wheelchair accessible, many are upstairs or accessed through doors which are too narrow, and visitors from outside the town would have to know which premises are part of the current 'scheme' and where they are situated. This is very worrying and off-putting for visitors.

Young mums with toddlers are another category of the population with a problem, especially when they are trying to 'toilet train' their children as the children often give them insufficient warning, and also (dare I mention it) that women have always had more problems than men in any case and need to visit a toilet in a hurry for other reasons. The same applies to disabled people of any age and of both sexes, so this problem needs to be addressed urgently while the renovations are still under way, and could easily be seen as discriminatory against some sectors of the population. Young fit men are hardly likely to find this inconvenient, as they are probably used to visiting the pub, gym, leisure centre etc. which already have toilet facilities in place.

Can the paper find out if TVBC plans to provide toilet facilities in the new plan and how many of these we may expect to appear?

Name and address supplied.