Houses, restaurants, cafes and flats all converted from public toilets
Property for sale, no chain... It’s a perfect offer for a wave of people making their homes in old LOOS.
This is no potty scheme but the result of councils closing down sites and selling them to raise cash, the Sunday People has reported.
A deluge of old public lavatories has come on the market.
The British Toilet Association says more than 600 have been shut for good in the past 18 months – with planning permission for many to be turned into homes.
But buyers may need to spend a pretty penny doing them up.
It cost Laura Jane Clark £60,000 to convert an underground toilet in Crystal Palace, South London. Now it is her dream flat.
Her living room was the gents’ cubicles and urinals. Her bathroom was the cleaner’s cubby.
Thick glass tiles on the pavement are in her ceiling giving natural light to her one-bedroom home below street level. Laura, 32, said: “I love the originality of living in a toilet.”
Tracy Woodhouse and partner Graham Peck transformed a seafront public lavatory into a home with magnificent views in Scarborough, North Yorks.
A £35,000 refit turned the gents’ into the lounge and the ladies’ into the bedroom and bathroom.
Tracy, 47, said: “Some people joke about it. At work they’ll say things like, ‘Oh yes, you’re the couple who live in a lavatory.’
“We have a lovely little house with a sea view that used to be a loo. We understand the amusement it causes. It tickles us too.”
Jon Du Croz and partner Emma Lally’s project was doing up a dingy loo in Witney, Oxford.
They bought the site for £36,000 and spent £155,000 renovating it and a neighbouring substation.
Jon’s first plan was to build a house from scratch but he could not afford it. He said: “I had to see the potential in something that nobody else wanted.”
Builder Nick Willan paid £104,000 for a toilet block dating from 1900. It was a 30th anniversary present for his wife Sue.
Now it is their ideal home with sea views in Sheringham, Norfolk. Nick, 55, said: “It has awesome views. You just can’t beat it.”
The council shut the Victorian conveniences in 2006 because they needed a lot of improvements plus electrical work.
They opted to sell and put the proceeds into building a new lavatory block 300 yards farther along the beach. Nick is busy spending £30,000 adding an extra floor with a spiral staircase, balconies and big windows.
In a final creative touch the couple have decided to rename the property Wee Retreat.
Old loos across the land are being converted into homes AND business premises.
One was bought by a charity and turned into a cafe in Bristol. Takings will provide support for the elderly and disabled.
The toilets cost £20,000, snapped up by church-run Sea Mills Community Initiatives, who manage to raise £120,000 for the conversion.
Chairman of the trustees Andrew Street smiled and said: “It’s quite small but perfectly formed. We thought about calling it The Wee Cafe but decided against it.”
Toilets in Peckham Rye Park, South East London, have been turned into a thriving pre-school, the Rye Garden Day Nursery.
PTomlinson spent redundancy money from his marketing job converting a former public lavatory into a sandwich and coffee bar in Oxford Street in the heart of London’s West End.
The old attendant’s office has been converted into a kitchen and the urinals are now table tops in a project which has cost more than £100,000.
Peter, who calls his place The Attendant, said: “Everything has been jet washed. It smells beautiful down here now.”
An underground Victorian loo In Manchester became a bar called the Temple of Convenience.
An Edwardian block which contained TWO loos has been turned into the Toulouse restaurant in Westcliff-on-Sea, Essex.
Facilities which had been shut for two years were available again because owner Colin Thorne opened his toilets to the public. Persistent vandalism to lavatories in Bearwood, West Midlands, forced a council to close them down in 2011. Businessman Barry Hall is developing them into a deli and restaurant but he also include new public loos.
British Toilet Association director Raymond Martin said: “It’s quirky and all very well for people to move into converted toilets but councils need to make sure they are being replaced.
“This does not always happen because councils are not obliged to provide toilets. The facilities can help bring money into an area by making it more attractive for shoppers and tourists to visit.”
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