WORKMEN demolishing a village public toilets paid a quick visit to the nearby pub - to use the loo.

Fortunately Barry Ricketts, landlord of the Rock Hotel, Trawden, saw the funny side but said the problem of people "spending a penny" in the pub toilets but not spending at the bar would get worse now the only public conveniences in the village centre had gone.

"It was a local firm doing the work so I knew one of the lads," said Barry, who recently backed an unsuccessful village campaign to retain the public toilets.

"They had to come in to use the loo because they were knocking the others down, which just proved my point.

"When you've got to go you've got to go and you can't be nasty about people using the pub toilets.

"The trouble is we've got children as young as five and six coming in on their own to use the loos because they've seen other people doing it and it isn't on.

"The problem is obviously going to get worse now the public toilets have gone."

The public loos in Keighley Road, just 100 yards from the pub, were demolished as part of a cost-saving programme by Pendle Council to get rid of vandalised and underused public conveniences.

Up to half the borough's public toilets are to go.

The Trawden toilet site will be developed as a Millennium poetry garden. Winning entries of a Trawden Forest Parish Council dialect poetry competition held last year will be re-produced on brass plaques in the garden.

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