ILKLEY Town Council agreed to set aside £120,000 to fund a full refurbishment of the Riverside Gardens toilet block at a specially convened extraordinary meeting on Friday.

The amount includes a small contingency fund. The estimate for the work is £112, 708.

The block is currently closed as a result of vandalism which has irreparably damaged the hand washing units.

Local residents say the consequences of the public conveniences in remaining closed are creating a health hazard as people relieve themselves outside. They have called for the block to be reopened as soon as possible.

Ilkley Town Mayor Cllr Mark Stidworthy said: "The company that will be commissioned to undertake the work is called Healthmatic. They will install four automatically-locking self-contained units, each coin-pay and contactless (card/phone) access, and with touchless internal facilities. Two of the units will be disabled accessible, and all will contain baby change facilities. There will be Town Council storage facilities in the rest of the building.

"When the refurbishment begins, Healthmatic will provide two temporary toilet units so that some facilities are available during the works.

"We do not yet know when works will commence but have instructed Healthmatic to begin as soon as possible.

"Further consideration will be given to installing solar PV on the roof of the block to provide renewable electricity. A revised business case for this will be developed in the light of utilities costings which Healthmatic have estimated for the new units, before a decision is made. This is separate to the main installation and also includes consideration of the South Hawksworth Street toilet block.

"With respect to the current problems near to the block, the Town Council expressed its concerns alongside those of local residents, and also confirmed that it would continue to press Bradford MDC to undertake clean-up work on the adjacent land (which is not in Town Council ownership). The Town Council has put in place temporary measures for hand sanitisation in the absence of running hot water to the vandalised and irreparable hand wash units, and we await formal confirmation from Bradford MDC Environmental Health that we can reopen the Riverside toilet block temporarily until the refurbishment commences."