A PLAN to turn a disused public toilet into a homeless “pod” has been dropped.

The Herefordshire Council proposal for the Union Street facility in Hereford was greeted with astonishment by the city council, Hereford Civic Society), and St Peters Church next door.

Herefordshire Council’s own environmental health officer Sheneka Royal said the pods would have to meet the council’s legal obligations on heating, ventilation, fire safety, and minimum bedroom size.

But housing development officer Tina Wood said the pods would “provide improved quality of life, be well insulated and sound proofed, [and] assist in the prevention of rough sleeping and homelessness”.

Meanwhile a second council plan to convert three more former public loos in East Street into homeless accommodation remains under consideration.

For HCS, Peter Taylor said they also objected to this “in the strongest possible terms”.

“We cannot see how the remodelling and refurbishment or the isolated, minimally sized and non-communally based building in East Street can be called ‘appropriate housing’, nor how support services can be enabled for any occupant,” he wrote.

Mr Taylor said a previous proposal to buy the derelict John Haider Building, a four-storey 1930s social housing block in Bath and Gaol streets, could instead “form a base for the provision of such welfare and mental health help”.

This would also “overcome the need to continue with the unsuitable temporary accommodation for homeless people” in the Symonds Street/Venns Close car park.