Holy John! Cressroads’ city fathers look to slash public loo funding
No can do?
Used as a drop by the Portland spy ring in the days of the Cold War, Cressroads’ historic public loo opposite its police station, beside Alresford Surgery and a hop, skip and jump away from the town’s ever popular Watercress Line attracting tens of thousands of visitors is under threat of closure.
Blogsbody fears the protests of campaigners to keep the loo doors open 24/365 will count for diddly squat. But, 56 votes the difference at her last county council election, Jackie Porter’s campaign may best serve to keep safe her Liberal seat in next month’s two-horse race with the Tories.
Jackie, head high to the letterboxes of doors to 60-year-old, city-built housing, jests not: “The loos are in such a convenient position. We have all been desperate at some time or another, and I want dignity for all of the people of the town as well as visitors to it.”
“Here, here,” echoes retired Dr Gilby Yankalot, Cressroads’ retired Pound Hill dentist. “Provision of public toilets is a necessity in a civilized society, and important in attracting tourists.
“St Thomas Crapper, hear our prayer,” regularly relieved elderly St John’s parishioner Ethel Bucket exhorts at her nearby sheltered accommodation. “The older we get, the shorter we’re cut. What would good Queen Victoria’s plumber laureate have had to say about it?”
“All I can say,” notes St John’s Father Phil Collins, “is that the conveniences across Station Road from the churchyard are much used, particularly by the many visitors to the town.
“Not only would closure cause hardship, but a site of significant interest in the history of national security would be lost.”
Campaigners insist Winchester’s Tory-controlled council is out of touch with the needs of taxpayers, and cite the example of Cressroads’ prospective parliamentary candidate as well as city father for son of Comet George Hollingbery of Weir House, venue for charitable Alresford Pigs fund-raising Duck Race on Saturday, June 14.
For St George of Cressroads, millionaire man of compromise, suggests the loos close for the winter months - if the town council does not agree to pay its share of costs to keep them open year-round - and, come the tourist season, the city affords to re-open them for the remaining six months?
