NEW public toilets must be built in Northallerton High Street as soon as possible, councillors insisted yesterday.

Hambleton health committee firmly rejected an officers' recommendation which could have left the main street of the county town without conveniences for months.

Members overwhelmingly agreed instead to launch public consultations on the idea of building new toilets above ground, on the site of the closed underground ones outside the town hall, while a planning application is worked up.

The district council, which has been seeking sites for new toilets, was forced to return to the drawing board earlier this year when its hopes of using land behind the Black Bull pub were dashed.

The only other toilets are in the Applegarth, but Hambleton has been paying the town council for the use of conveniences in the town hall.

The existing underground toilets have been closed on the advice of structural engineers and, according to council officers, must be urgently demolished and filled in because the roof could collapse.

Yesterday the health committee was recommended to take no further action on new High Street toilets until the results of a wider town centre study were known.

But this option was rejected by Northallerton members of the committee including Coun John Coulson, who said the existing toilets should be refurbished and reopened for the public and market traders, with a section for the disabled at ground level.

He said: "I had thought we would have got a lot further than this by now. I am surprised to find officers saying there are only a small number of complaints about lack of public toilets in the town. Northallerton members have had complaint after complaint.

"Northallerton wants toilets in the High Street. We want something before Christmas this year. Every other market town has toilets and we want them back, sharp."

Coun Tony Hall said he was stunned by the officers' report, and added that a design brief for new toilets should be drawn up to satisfy local people.

Coun Steve Merritt said there had been a lamentable delay attached to the issue and added: "We cannot have too many toilets in Northallerton. In my view the town centre study is a red herring. We have to provide not only for visitors but for local people."

Members agreed that a planning application for new toilets should be based on drawings submitted to the committee but Mr Steve Quartermain, head of planning, warned that this and the consultation process meant it would be impossible to have anything in place by Christmas. Members would be looking at the next financial year.