Flush facility unveiled (From Hampshire Chronicle)

Flush facility unveiled

6:10am Sunday 28th June 2009

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A RIBBON is usually cut to open buildings, but Winchester civic chiefs used some lavatory paper instead to declare refurbished public toilets open.

The toilets, in The Broadway, next to Abbey House, the mayor’s official residence, have undergone a £250,000 refit after being closed for six months.

As part of the scheme, the ladies’ toilets have been brought into the same building, having previously been in an annexe on the other side of Abbey Gardens. The old toilets will be converted into a gardener’s store.

The refurbished toilet block is equipped with new cubicles and low-energy hand dryers — and speakers that pipe soothing music into the building!

City council head of environment, Rob Heathcock, who was at the official opening performed by the Mayor, Cllr Dominic Hiscock, said: “The point about the music is that it calms people down and the idea is that it reduces vandalism.

“It also stops people hanging around, as if they don’t like the music, they’ll leave!”

The building work was complicated by having to retain a historic wall and mimic the materials of 300-year-old Abbey House, which is linked to the western end of the block.

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