Call for more seafront toilets

BEACH hut owners are calling for more toilets on the resort's seafront - complaining they are too far away for elderly chalet users.

Owners at Manor End have got together a petition with dozens of signatures asking Suffolk Coastal council to take action.

The nearest loos are a 1,200 yard walk in both directions.

Petition organiser Tracey Parsley, of Gretna Gardens, Rushmere, said: “Many of the hut owners are quite elderly and some have disabilities and yet the nearest toilets are so far away.

“They demolished the loos we had and now you have to walk almost to Manning's or down to the Landguard car park.

“People are paying around �300 plus council tax for their hut sites and getting very little in return except a patch of ground.

“It wouldn't take much to install a portable loo each summer - hut owners could have a key to ensure it wasn't vandalised.”

Her grandmother had had a hut for 42 years which the whole family had used and enjoyed but facilities in the area had declined, with the loss of the site shop, mini golf and loos.

A Suffolk Coastal spokesman said: “The free public toilets provided along the seafront in Felixstowe are there for all the public and not just beach hut owners and as such are funded by our council taxpayers not from the rent earned from beach huts, the licences for which do not have any mention of toilets.

“The council has one of the best records in the country for providing free public toilets and we have invested heavily in improving their quality in recent years.”

The disused toilets had become a real eyesore and demolition had been the only sensible option. New toilets would be included in the south seafront development alongside the huts.

Should the council put temporary loos in place for summer? Write to Your Letters, Evening Star, 30 Lower Brook Street, Ipswich, IP4 1AN, or e-mail eveningstarletters@eveningstar.co.uk