A LAST-DITCH effort to block the closure of a public toilet at Calshot Beach has been foiled by New Forest District Council.

The council's ruling Conservative group has stuck to a previous decision to demolish two toilet blocks and replace them with a plush restaurant and a single toilet block and showers.

Its meeting at Lyndhurst began with beach hut owners' representative Hilary Farr handing in a 311-signature petition calling for the retention and refurbishment of the existing toilets.

"If the existing toilets are closed," she warned, "people will go back to bucket and chuck it and will be polluting the sea again - and now the sea has been cleaned up, that is something we don't want."

In support, Fawley parish councillor Eddie Holtham referred to the large numbers who used the existing toilets and said a new caf on the site of the existing Bosun caf would be in the wrong place.

Suggesting it should be built further to the east at the Calshot Spit car park, he said: "Three times as many visitors visit that car park as visit any other part of Calshot."

There was also a case, he said, for keeping the toilet open in the main car park as it served considerable numbers of people who used the western end of the beach

"To reduce the number of toilets is foolhardy, as the Spit End toilet has struggled on more than one occasion to cope with the amount of usage on busy weekends, when your maintenance men have had to be called out to rod the blocked drains," he warned.

But the council's environment portfolio holder Nick Smith said the toilet block in the car park was 45 years old and the one at the Spit end of the beach was 37 years old.

"Patching up the existing blocks in the short term is not a realistic option, as they would still need to be maintained and replaced, costing more in the long term.

"We want to provide top-quality facilities for everyone to enjoy and we are confident that a partnership with a private investor in the new restaurant and toilet block and showers will help us to achieve this," he said.

The Conservative majority outvoted its Liberal Democrat opposition by 30 votes to 20 with three abstentions in sticking to its decision for a restaurant and toilet block in place of the two ageing toilets.