£160,000 to spend a penny in Yarmouth

Work has started on Yarmouth’s new pay-to-go public toilets. The £160,000 build will modernise and upgrade the toilets in Bridge Street and on the High Street, opposite The Common.
Steve Cowley, Mayor of Yarmouth, said: “We have a Public Works Loan Board payment for the building works. It will save us money in the long run because of the horrendous amount of costs to maintain the current toilets and the build will not affect the annual precept.”

The council is working with Swedish company Danfo, who have helped other parish, town and community councils on the Island. The new toilets will be pay-to-use and people must make a payment to enter the cubicle. However, the disabled toilets, where a baby changing unit will also be installed, will be free.

On Bridge Street, the existing cubicles will be converted to unisex ones, eliminating the male entrance, which will become a store room. These facilities are not considered environmentally friendly and cause high utility bills, with the building dated and worn.

The High Street’s existing structure will be demolished and replaced with a pre-fabricated building, similar to the one in our photograph.

Instead of the cubicles there now, there will be one disabled toilet, with baby-changing facilities, which will be free to use, and one unisex cubicle which will be pay-to-use.

The toilets on Yarmouth Pier are owned by the Harbour Commissioners and will be unaffected. Once the lockdown is over, both the Pier toilets and the Harbour toilets will be open to the public.