Honiton Town Council: 'Keep our King Street loos open!'

Plans to close the public toilets in Honiton's King Street car park are being strongly opposed by the town council.

East Devon District Council (EDDC) plans to keep the Lace Walk loos open and continue maintaining them, but doesn't think the King Street facilities are needed as well.

Honiton Town Council disagrees and has set out its arguments for keeping both toilet blocks open in its response to EDDC's consultation on the plans, which ends at 5pm on Friday (October 1).

When deciding which loos to keep, which to sell or lease out for other purposes and which to close, EDDC divided them into categories A, B or C; as Honiton Nub News reported here.

As part of this process EDDC looked into the matter of proximity, based on the idea that in town centre areas there should be a toilet block within an eight-minute walk, and where possible a four-minute walk, or around 300 metres.

The King Street toilets are in category C, comprising those which are not used much and/or have other facilities nearby. The district council's categorisation list says Honiton town centre is already served by the Category A Lace Walk loos.

Honiton Town Council says in its response that it thinks the King Street toilets have been wrongly categorised and should be in category A, comprising those which are the most needed by residents and visitors alike, and suitable for refurbishment. It also suggests that the town council could take over the running of the Lace Walk loos.

In its response to the consultation, Honiton Town Council said: "It is welcomed that the toilet block at Lace Walk is intended to be kept open and operated/maintained by EDDC, although it is noted that there is no option for that toilet block and the costs to retain open/maintained to be passed on to the Town Council and perhaps there should be a discussion about that option.

"We disagree that King Street and Lace Walk are within proximity of each other and therefore proximity cannot be used as an argument for King Street toilet block to be closed.

"There appears to be a disparity between the number and costs of provision across East Devon's towns.

"Honiton Town Council believes that providing just one public convenience in a town with Honiton's population is disproportionate with other East Devon towns. There must be parity of provision by EDDC."

The town council adds that it 'recognises the social and economic importance of providing conveniences in the town centre and therefore understands the necessity to keep public conveniences at Lace Walk at King Street.

"There needs to be detailed discussion about both."

EDDC will analyse the results of the consultation and report back on them in due course. Some of the comments members of the public have made in the consultation can be seen here.