Hated loos are set to go

THEY'VE been hated ever since the day they were built!

What other town would have as its centrepiece to welcome thousands of visitors each year to an exciting day of fun by the sea than . . . a block of toilets?

While most places have landscaped town squares, magnificent floral displays, statues of renowned figures, open-air cafes, Felixstowe must be the only one to have lavatories as the focal point of its town centre.

Now though - after countless complaints and many years of deliberating by councillors - it's time to lose the loos on The Triangle.

The block in Hamilton Road is set to go to make way for a new open space and which in time could be transformed into a setting for open-air music and performance art as part of a vibrant new town centre for the resort.

Councillors are set to press ahead with a �205,000 project to demolish the unsightly block and build new toilets in the Crescent car park opposite the library, just 50 yards away.

Andy Smith, chairman of the town centre management committee, said: “It will be great to get these toilets moved.

“In the short-term it will give us an attractive new open space and in the longer term we will be using the Triangle for a much more spectacular project as part of the regeneration of the resort.”

The block was built in the early 1980s, replacing a partly-underground set of toilets, but it was never a popular move from the start.

Mr Smith said it “quickly attracted criticism in the sense of the visual centrepiece of the town being a very obvious toilet block”.

He said little could be done initially but an analysis of the town centre made a few years ago identified the location of the toilets as a “significant weakness” and the town centre management group had been working on a solution ever since.

Will you be glad to see the Triangle toilets moved? Write to Your Letters, Evening Star, 30 Lower Brook Street, Ipswich, IP4 1AN, or e-mail eveningstarletters@eveningstar.co.uk