Taihape Playground Group president Charity Davis said the toilets adjacent to Kokako St were in the way of the proposed playground redevelopment.
Plans for a redeveloped and expanded playground at the end of Memorial Park have been underway since 2020.
Davis said the toilets were “not up to health and safety standards”.
Davis and TGRC chairwoman Gill Duncan agreed the toilets should be demolished and new ones built under the grandstand.
Duncan said toilets under the grandstand “would seem the most practical” option.
The space requested for the playground had been reduced since initial discussions for the Taihape Domain Master Plan 2022-23.
Duncan said the toilets further reduced the available green space.
“If we put them under the grandstand, it would give more space for the playground equipment and still allow access for maintenance vehicles and emergency vehicles,” she said.
“It is beneficial for the whole grandstand project that it is rebuilt or reinstated and renovated as a multi-use facility.”
To include new toilets in the grandstand restoration project, Duncan asked the council to allocate $256,000 in the 2026-27 budget.
The scope of the toilets had not been finalised, she said.
Duncan believed the council should honour the request because it had committed to replacing the toilets.
The council said the Ngā Awa Block and grandstand project had taken priority since 2018, as part of the plan, but noted a new playground would require removing the existing public toilet and building a new one.
The Heritage Trust sub-committee’s Peter Kipling-Arthur said the toilets were unhygienic and did not cater for people with mobility challenges.
“They are unsafe for children and they don’t serve individuals with mobility challenges at all; in fact, some of the stalls are too small for your average-sized person,” he said.
“There is a need for toilets all through the summer. I know that the staff that run the pools are often interrupted by people wanting to know if they can use the toilets there.
“It is something that we ask as a case of maintaining and developing the jewel that is the Memorial Park complex; we have got a great heritage jewel in the crown and the bunker that is the toilets is the one thing that spoils it.”
Kipling-Arthur said his group had no preference whether the toilets were upgraded in their current location or built under the grandstand.
The council will consider the 47 oral and written Annual Plan submissions at a meeting on May 21, with the Annual Plan to be adopted before June 30.
Fin Ocheduszko Brown is a multimedia journalist based in Whanganui.
