WORK is to start on a new toilet block for sports ground in Broad Lane, Wivenhoe – despite the ongoing tug-of-war over the site.

Wivenhoe & District Sporting Facilities Trust has announced it has hired builder WJ Sparrow and Sons to put up the building in the south-east corner of the Broad Lane stadium.

It will be accessible from inside and outside the ground.

Wivenhoe Town FC, which is embroiled in a rent row with the trust over its tenancy at the stadium, has questioned the value-for-money provided by its landlord as little cash has been put in to the run-down facility.

But trust chairman Andrew Nightingale said, in the case of the toilet block scheme, it was Wivenhoe Town which had stood in the way of progress.

He revealed two of the trustees had personally paid £4,000 each towards the project, to make up for a shortfall created by the Dragons’ failure to pay any rent since August 2008.

Mr Nightingale said: “I am delighted we have been able to make this commitment to further develop the site.

“It adds to the £150,000-plus that the trust has secured for facilities in the past and keeps faith with the Broad Lane sports community.”

Due to be completed in May, the toilet block will be 500sq ft in area. The trust hopes in future to add more changing rooms to the site.

So far, there is only enough money to complete the shell of the building, but the trust hopes to fit it out by getting volunteers to help by raising further funds.

l In a story last week on the Broad Lane row, the Gazette reported that £12,000 of a £16,000 donation to the trust from Yakult was paid to one of the trustees for doing medical research.

We are happy to make clear the £12,000 was paid to a company called Pro Sport, which carried out the research work, and the trustee, himself an academic, merely facilitated the deal.