THE mayor of Northwich insists the town cannot wait four years to replace the public toilets lost in the outdoor market fire.

Town councillors want to see the facilities replaced ahead of the new outdoor events space being developed where the covered market stood – but those plans do not include new toilets.

Cllr Sam Naylor, who also represents the town centre on CWAC, told town councillors he had 'complete understanding and sympathy' for the call to open new facilities.

But he said the key issue would be whether providing new toilets in the Weaver Square area will be value for money when they are likely to be torn back down in just four years' time.

"We did lose public toilets in the fire just over 12 months ago and we do need to look at every angle of how we could perhaps replace them," he said.

"But the bottom line is, the figure I got was about £60,000. If we can find it we will do, but we have got to look at different alternatives.

"The open space is hopefully only going to be there four years because of the development of Weaver Square and [CWAC] don't want to go spending huge amounts of money on public toilets when they are going to be demolishing it and starting again."

While admitting he understood why CWAC would not want to spend money on something short-term, town mayor Cllr Kevin Rimmer insisted residents should not have to wait until the new Weaver Square is built.

He said: "I totally agree in respect of spending money when they might be doing something with the site, but we could explore it, even if they are temporary toilets.

"I accept what you are saying but I don't agree with this 'in four years' time', because that is not acceptable.

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"Four years is too long for a town like Northwich, with the reputation we've got as an excellent town [with an] excellent town council, not to have enough public toilets."

As part of the lease agreement with CWAC, the toilets at Asda in Barons Quay are available for public use and not just for customers, along with the facilities at Brio Memorial Court.