PUBLIC toilets will finally return to Menston with the help of more than £4,000 from Ilkley Parish Council funds.

The parish council has agreed to give £4,600 towards their reopening with the rest of the £9,200 total needed for the work being provided by Bradford Council.

Menston has had to go without public toilets since Bradford closed down the outdoor toilet block at Kirklands Community Centre, Menston, after serious vandalism.

Residents and parish councillors argued that the toilets needed to be refurbished and opened once more as facilities for members of the community, tradespeople visiting the area or the many walkers who begin or end their moorland walks in the village.

But with Bradford Council's district-wide review of toilet facilities, and the claim that the toilets could not be altered to comply with the new Disability Discrimination Act, it looked as though the doors would remain closed.

Ilkley Parish Council has since held talks with Bradford Council officers and Menston Bowling Club, as one plan had involved the bowling club being responsible for the toilets and opening and locking them during the club's opening hours.

But parish council chairman Brian Mann says that under the latest deal, the toilets will be opened by Bradford Council staff daily and maintained by Bradford.

Councillor Mann said: "I'm sure these facilities will be much-appreciated by the people of Menston. They will be signposted, so they are not going to be hidden away. I'm quite pleased about this."

He said that the toilet block would not have direct access from the adjoining bowling club, which is also planning a refurbishment.

The parish council agreed on Monday night to use £4,600 from its Special Projects pots to pay for the parish's share of the work on the toilets.

Councillors had put aside thousands of pounds from the parish precept in recent years towards paying for public toilets across the parish. As well as the lack of toilets in Menston, Burley-in-Wharfedale is without a public toilet block, and councillors were concerned about the state of public toilets at the historic White Wells bath-house on the edge of Ilkley Moor.

A Superloo is expected to be installed in Burley in future. After discussions about the White Wells toilets, Bradford Council agreed to refurbish the existing toilet building and create another toilet block in a building nearby.

The state of the toilets at White Wells had met criticism not only from parish councillors, but also a judge for the prestigious Green Pennant Award scheme, who came to Ilkley to asses Darwin Gardens Millennium Green for a Green Pennant.