Why the secrecy over toilets plan?

Further to your article ‘Town centre loos make way for parking spaces’ (KE, December 8), having visited the toilets offered by the community scheme and paid for by council taxpayers, I found most of the facilities were not compliant with the Department for Transport’s Inclusive Mobility dimensions and therefore not accessible to all disabled people, in particular full-time wheelchair users who have to do side-transfer.

Having received a copy of a letter from the heads of the council to my colleague chair of the South East National Disability Cuts Watch Team mentioning clearly that the public toilet in Vicarage Lane car park “is on a site that will inevitably be redeveloped in the near future, in any event”, on several occasions I asked what was planned for that area and was assured that nothing was planned.

I was also assured that money was not an issue.

Also, we have discovered that through the Ashford Town Centre Area Action Plan, courtesy of the government inspector, agreement to develop this site was made by the council in February 2010.

We fail to understand why the council has been so secretive and not been more honest about the future of the land.

If this area is redeveloped, what alternative arrangements will be made for parking if the town’s largest surface car park – with 26 blue badge holder bays – is no longer available?

We also want to ask that as the community toilet scheme is not accessible to all disabled people and therefore discriminatory, why can’t the Vicarage Lane public toilets be kept open with some renovations as long as the car park is in use? Mrs F Montford Project team leader for Independence and Access Matters with Wheelchair Users Group