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Home / Bay of Plenty Times

Local Focus: Hot Water Beach toilets named best with a Keep New Zealand Beautiful Award

Hunter Calder
By Hunter Calder
Videojournalist Waikato, NZH Local Focus·NZ Herald·
6 Nov, 2018 12:00 AM3 mins to read

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Hot Water Beach toilet wins NZ Beautiful Award. Made with funding from NZ on Air

Hot Water Beach's new toilets have been named the best public loo in the country.

Thames-Coromandel District Mayor Sandra Goudie said the amenity was a sitter for the Keep New Zealand Beautiful Award.

"We have the wonderful undulating exterior which has a real connection to the environment in which it sits in relation to the sea," she said.

"Surfers and swimmers love its timber wave design reflecting the beach, its new changing room with a hot shower and increased number of toilets."

Hot Water Beach beat two other finalists - Benneydale Public Toilets and Te Mata Peak Park - for the 2018 title.

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The Hot Water Beach public toilet officially opened a year ago, with its architectural styling intended to blend with the surrounding coastal environment.

Being right on the beachfront of the world-famous Hot Water Beach, the toilets had plenty of use from international tourists, New Zealand visitors and locals.

The toilets were also designed to handle large amounts of sand and was connected to an upgraded effluent system.

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"It's fantastic that our loo has been recognised as the best public loo in New Zealand," said Goudie.

However, not everyone was so enamoured.

Surf club chairman Gary Hinds said: "It would have been good if they had actually listened to what was needed.

"We had enough toilets but needed more changing rooms. Different ethnicities coming to the beach won't get changed in public, or on a big bench seat.

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"What we wanted was more cubicles to get changed in because that overflows to the toilets and people are taking up toilets changing, when that space should be for people needing toilets."

Hinds also felt there had been an over-investment in car parks and the toilets but no extra investment in the Surf Lifesaving Club to ensure beachgoers were kept safe

"It's a bit frustrating watching them build this $800,000-plus toilet and us not getting anything out of it to put extra [patrols] on the beach. To me it's a health and safety issue."

Mayor Goudie said ratepayer money already contributed towards lifeguard services via the Waikato Regional Council.

Goudie urged people to "love the loo for their ones and twos, that's what we want our visitors to do".

"There are far too many visitors that defecate all over the show.

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"Toilets, in my view, are the number one infrastructure people look for. We should have an app identifying every public loo in the country."

And with the country's number one piece of number one infrastructure, Hot Water beach will be hoping these toilets are well prepared for number ones and twos this summer.

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