A PUBLIC consultation exercise is underway on the proposed funding of a new toilet block in Wellington town centre.

The town council wants to borrow the estimated £238,000 needed to replace the toilets in Longforth Road which were demolished after a car crashed into the building just before Christmas, 2022.

It plans to request a loan from the Public Works Loan Board (PWLB), which provides low-cost finance for local authorities.

Repayment of the required loan would cost about £18,000 a year over 20 years, and the council has already included £20,000 in its forward budgets.

A spokesperson for the council said: “This amount forms 1.6 per cent of the council tax precept for 2025-26.

“In August, the council chose a modular design to submit to planning which has now been approved by Somerset Council.

“In order to fund the replacement, the council intends to obtain a public work loan.”

The spokesperson said insurance claims were continuing to be pursued from both the council’s own insurer and that of the car driver.

However, the toilet block had been considerably under-insured by the council at the time of the crash and so any payout would not be enough to cover a full rebuild.

The spokesperson said once any insurance money was received by the council, councillors would then discuss how to use it.

There would be an expectation that the money was spent on similar projects, such as the future running costs of, or improvements to, the town’s other public toilets in North Street car park and Wellington Park.

The consultation, which runs until Monday, February 17, is mainly being run online, but paper copies of the form can also be obtained from Wellington’s public library, in Fore Street.

The new toilet block will have one accessible and two uni-sex cubicles.