Protesters turn out to try to save toilet block

Workers who turned up to prepare to knock down a derelict toilet block on Monday morning found themselves faced with protestors.

Some local residents went inside the fences around the Furzeham toilet block in Brixham, Devon, and chanted "Don't Knock The Block!" in a bid to save the crumbling building.

The police were called but did not need to intervene, and workers carried on putting up scaffolding and preparing to knock down the toilet block, which has asbestos in the roof.

Torbay Council said a compromise had been agreed with a concrete base retained, allowing a pop-up cafe on the site in the future.

It said the building at Ropewalk Hill was a redundant public toilet block that had been boarded up since at least 2006, was structurally unsound and contained asbestos.

The protestors wanted it to be available as a cafe and information centre for a local project to open up a footpath on the route of the old Brixham branch railway line.

Local councillor Andrew Strang said the authority had come up with a compromise, telling the protesters that when the toilet came down, a concrete base would be retained, allowing a pop-up cafe to take its place in the future, the Local Democracy Reporting Service reported.

Brixham town councillor Frances Robinson said the block would be perfect for a cafe, and had been offered out to tender by the council three years ago, at which point a local businessman had wanted to take it on.

He said: "Hopefully they will call this off and do the sensible thing so that we can actually all get round a table and sort out the future of this building.

"We want to retain it, save the council the cost of demolition, and put it back into public use."

But Torbay Council's deputy leader Chris Lewis said the building was unsafe.

He said: "All the experts say the best thing to do is to demolish it. We'll do the hard bit and get rid of the asbestos, then ask the community what they want on that site.

"Someone has got to make the hard decisions, and we will do that if they are right for the community and for Torbay."

The council said the site had attracted vandalism, anti-social behaviour and rough sleeping.

"As the owners of the building, we are able to undertake demolition works under permitted development rights, and our application submitted in March 2026 was duly approved," it added.

The council said the decision to demolish the structure was in line with its asset management strategy.

"We recognise that this site has attracted strong local opinions, and we remain committed to working with local partners to support the wider aspirations and long‑term prosperity of the area," it added.

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