JUST minutes after the Gazette arrived to inspect a disabled toilet in Marlborough, cleaning materials, chairs and a stepladder that had been obstructing it were removed.

Val Compton discovered the toilet tucked away in Hughenden Yard at the back of WH Smith when doing an audit on facilities for the disabled in the town.

There are no signs pointing from the High Street to the toilets and the nearest facilities of the kind are several hundred yards away beneath the town hall or in the George Lane car park.

The nearest public conveniences in Chantry Lane do not have any disabled facilities.

Mrs Compton helped carry out the audit of disabled facilities in Marlborough when she formerly worked for the Local Information Point.

She was surprised to learn that there was a disabled toilet in Hughenden Yard that she believes was probably a condition of the planning permission when the shopping alley was originally built.

However when she inspected the toilet she found that it was used for storing window cleaning materials.

Access for anyone in a wheelchair, she said, would have been severely hampered if not made impossible by the various items stored in the eight feet square room.

Since carrying out the survey four years ago Mrs Compton said that calls to the town council and approaches to the agents for the yard's owner had failed to resolve the problem.

On Monday afternoon she took Gazette reporter Nigel Kerton to show him the obstructed lavatory.

He listed a couple of folding camp chairs, a pair of steps, and a number of coats hanging up.

Outside the door was a shopping trolley full of cleaning materials.

There was a pool of water on the floor inside the room; the hot water geyser could not be used because a hose pipe was fitted to it; dirt was splashed up the walls and the sink and the piece of soap it contained were both dirty.

Mrs Compton said: "It can't have had a health inspection for years."

However within minutes of Mrs Compton and the journalist arriving the items stored in the toilet were cleared out.

Fortunately Mrs Compton had a photograph taken recently showing stored materials obstructing wheelchair access to the room.

Window cleaner Paul Trimnell who also has the contract to keep Hughenden Yard clean and tidy said he had an agreement with its agents that he could store equipment and materials in the building as long as he removed it during the day.

Mr Trimnell told the Gazette: "It's hardly ever used because nobody knows it's there but if people ask me if I know where there is a disabled toilet I always show them where it is."

Mrs Compton said she understood that Mr Trimnell believed he could store his equipment in the toilet but she said: "Although it's Marlborough's best kept secret because there are no signs saying where it is, it must be a shock for any users when they have opened the door to find all the stuff stored inside."

She thanked Mr Trimnell for removing everything he had stored in the lavatory and said she would continue to campaign for signs to be erected showing where it was.

Ian Young of Newbury based Young Associates who act as agents to the yard's owners told the Gazette: "We have just inherited this property from a previous managing agent.

"I have asked the cleaners to move their equipment so that the disabled toilet can be used."