LOCAL people and visitors to Bedale who found themselves caught short had nowhere to spend a penny during the earlier part of this week because of crossed wires at a local authority.

There was anger that Hambleton District Council had neither announced in advance the closure of the public toilets for refurbishment nor made any immediate arrangements for temporary ones while the work takes place.

The inconvenient problem emerged as Bedale tries to raise its profile as a market town by seeking improved tourism signs at main road entrances and on the A1.

The oversight was highlighted by Coun Ray Calvert, the mayor, who said the first he knew about it was when he saw notices announcing the closure on the doors of the town's only set of toilets, in the Bridge Street car park, on Monday.

A senior Hambleton spokesman said his department had been unaware of the development, but the council was arranging for the adjoining disabled toilet to be used temporarily by the public from Wednesday until today, when it was planned to bring in a portable building.

Coun Calvert said: "When the town council was talking to Hambleton before Christmas about the refurbishment, we were told that temporary toilets would not be needed, which baffled me.

"If there were two sets of toilets in the town there would be no problem, but I couldn't even see anyone working on the present ones. There were just these notices saying they were closed with nothing temporary in place.

"I'm not sure when the notices went up, but Bedale has been without toilets for at least two days and on Tuesday we have had market day traders, including a farmers' market, and visitors who would have been wanting to use them. Where did all these people go?

"It's no good and it's something which will have to be pursued with Hambleton.''

John Laity, chairman of the chamber of trade, said: "The good news is that the toilets are being refurbished, but you would have thought the fact they were being closed would have been announced last week and it is a shame Hambleton did not think about temporary arrangements before they started the refurbishment.''

Eric Kendall, head of environmental health and housing at Hambleton, said he would investigate why the builder put up the closure notices without his knowledge.

"The work we are doing on these toilets is not something which would normally take a long time, but the architect and builder have agreed that they should work in tandem on refurbishing the toilets at Thirsk and Bedale. Instead of a few days' work at Bedale it will now take about three weeks.

"I was not happy that a decision was taken to put up closure notices at Bedale without my being aware of it as the project sponsor. If I had been aware of it arrangements would have been made for temporary toilets. It is something for which the council apologises.''

The toilets, which are being refurbished using money saved on an improvement programme at the conveniences in Thirsk, were among the targets when town councillors took Hambleton officials on a tour of Bedale last summer to point out shortcomings in the cleanliness of the town. Their condition has been described as medieval by the tourist information centre.