CLAIMS that Blackpool's image is going down the pan because of its poor public loos have been fuelled by a council decision to use toilets as the display centre piece at a prestigious flower show.

Green-fingered workers at Blackpool Borough Council snubbed critics of the resort's WCs by entering an environmentally-aware garden -- complete with recycled toilet bowls -- at Cheshire's Royal Horticultural Society Flower Show recently.

The 10 by 10 metre garden featured a bench supported by two upturned toilets, another toilet planted up with bedding plants, tyres, recycled glass borders and a profusion of petunias, lobelias, begonias and marigolds. The display took six weeks to prepare and a day and a half to install at Tatton.

Still flushed with the display's success in attracting attention, Mark Scrivens, Blackpool Council parks manager, denied the inclusion of toilets was a tongue-in-cheek jibe at critics of Blackpool's toilets.

His team were inspired, he said, by the council's recycling and environmental aims, and they wanted to try something other than the bog-standard display.

"We wanted to do something a little bit different. A lot of the other councils focused on the standard bedding design, as if it was in the park," he explained. "We gave people ideas -- that you can use all sorts of things as plant containers."

He said the garden was constantly surrounded by dozens of people. But despite its popularity it was not a winner. "I think maybe it was a bit radical for the judges," he said.

But the Tatton show entry provoked thorny criticism back in Blackpool, after a recent Which? report panned some of the town's loos as the worst in Britain.

Blackpool councillor Henry Mitchell -- who is campaigning to have the town's controversial Claremont toilets shut down -- said: "It's rather rich considering that we have the worst toilets in Great Britain, and I think this is adding insult to injury.

"If that's supposed to be our shop window at Tatton Park it doesn't say much for the image of our town. It's farcical."

But he said the town's 27 public toilets could soon be replaced by automated superloos, for which the council would pay rent, leaving the maintenance to the toilets' owners. He said £1.2million is currently spent on the upkeep of Blackpool toilets, with an income of only £30,000 generated by toilet entry fees.

And Blackpool Pleasure Beach owner Geoffrey Thompson, whose park won two top awards in the latest Cannon Hygiene Loo of the Year Awards, was said by a spokesman to be "outraged" by the Tatton display, and angry about the state of the town's toilets.

"He is absolutely appalled that nothing has been done," she said.

But she remained tight-lipped about a possible announcement next week by the Pleasure Beach directly linked to the toilet controversy.