Alan Bell: Why are there still no toilets at South Beach?

Last week, the sun beamed down from a cloudless sky for at least three days in a row. This coincided with the funfair arriving on South Beach, so over a hundred visitors and locals descended on Ardrossan and Saltcoats to enjoy the beach atmosphere.

The only problem was, there are no toilet facilities.

With the removal of the South Beach toilet block there is literally nowhere for people to spend a penny, wash sandy feet or give water to their heat-exhausted dogs.

Despite many objections from locals about the removal of the old toilet block, permission was given for the toilets to be demolished and a café bult in its place.

As crazy as this may sound, the plan was to build a café in the footprint of the old toilet block and beach users could then have access to the toilets in the café if they were ever caught short.

Now, anyone who knows South Beach will tell you that there can be hundreds of people on the beach in the summer months, so whoever thought that removing the toilet block and replacing them with only three toilets to accommodate those hundreds of people was a good idea, must be living in cuckoo land.

Anyway, all that aside, we were informed weeks ago that the completion of the new café had been delayed, so the question is, why have the council not put portable toilets on the promenade grass area to accommodate all the people at the beach and at the funfair?

I lost count of the number of people who came rushing off the beach to our Barony St John Centre to use the toilets as there was none available for them anywhere on the promenade. I’m sure the Lauriston Hotel would have had the same problem.

Surely this needs to be given a top priority? We can’t bring amenities to Ardrossan beach area such as a new café, a new playpark, an upgraded crazy golf course, not to mention the original playpark and the beach itself – and only have two toilets accommodating this entire area. It’s madness!

What do YOU think?