A FORMER toilet block has been sold just weeks after going on the market.

The property, accessed via Bond Street, along with a four-bedroom apartment has been snapped up, it was revealed at a meeting of the management committee yesterday.

Strategic director Martin Hamilton confirmed the sale had been agreed subject to conditions at the meeting at the borough council offices on Commercial Road, in response to questions by Cllr James Farquharson.

He also updated councillors on progress to a temporary arrangement for public toilets near the seafront for this summer.

Mr Hamilton said: “We are in discussions with one of the leaseholders on the Esplanade about locating facilities adjacent to their premises. Colleagues are bringing forward details on design. We do not want a very basic solution.”

He added that there would be a further update at the next management committee meeting.

Councillors agreed to sell the property in September last year, after it was revealed the authority’s 15 public toilets cost the public purse £500,000 a year. In 2011 Weymouth was accused of having the worst public toilets in England, with visitors citing the facilities in Bond Street and at Greenhill as being in a particular state of disrepair.

The toilets in the building were closed in October. Councillors were told the upper parts of the building had been empty for more than a decade, and that it would cost around £40,000 to bring the building back to a good condition.

The Bond Street property went on the market in January, for offers over £250,000. The property being sold by Goadsby includes the public toilets on the ground floor and lower level.

It said the premises are suitable for a variety of uses, including a hotel or residential, subject to planning permission.

But people spoke out about the need for public toilets on the seafront in the summer, with one resident saying those with young children or older parents had been particularly distressed.

And Cllr Kate Weller raised concerns at a previous management committee meeting that the alternative provision would be ‘Portaloos’. She also said that arrangements should be put in place before the Bond Street toilets were closed.

In reply, Mr Hamilton said the alternative arrangements would be ‘much more suitable than builders’ Portaloos’.

The Dorset Echo asked the borough council who had bought the property, but a spokesman for the authority said they are not yet in a position to announce who the new owner is as the sale has not been completed.