A public toilet block near Keswick is due to be turned into a café.

The announcement was made by Allerdale council, which owns the facility at Braithwaite.

The public toilet was registered as a community asset last year and two bids were submitted to the authority, one for a café and the other for the toilet block to be turned into a hub to stores historic records by the village’s community archive group.

A spokesman for Allerdale council said: “We were keen to look at new ways to secure the long-term future of the toilets in Braithwaite.

“We were clear with both parties that they had to maintain a public toilet facility for visitors and residents of Braithwaite.

“The community archive scored highly on the community value criteria.

“However, the panel had greater confidence in the long-term financial sustainability of the bid for the café and more importantly their ability to continue to provide a public toilet facility which would be open at similar times to now.”

Historic material on Braithwaite is currently stored at members of the Braithwaite Community Archive’s houses.

The initiative to turn the public toilet block into a historic hub had sparked the support of community groups, MPs and celebrities such as Paul Heiney, broadcaster and author, and Julia Bradbury, broadcaster, and National Trust ambassador and mountaineer Sir Chris Bonington.