They have been a popular stop on the tourist trail for decades.

Visited by high-ranking members of the political establishment, all manner of celebrities and just about every man who has had occasion to visit Brighton by train, Brighton station's gentlemen's conveniences have long been an unwelcome advert for the city.

The gents at the busiest railway station in the South-East outside London are no longer in the first flush of youth and yesterday it was announced they are to be replaced.

Commuters have hailed the announcement as a victory, bringing to an end six years of campaigns for improvements to the ancient, dark, dirty interior, which will be ripped out and replaced by sparkling new loos in August.

Data analyst Dominic Morgan, 44, from Hove, said: "Working in London, I use the station almost every day, which inevitably means that, like many others, I have to use those toilets.

"It has always seemed ridiculous to me that Brighton is an absolutely beautiful city compared with most of London and yet your first sight if you are caught short is just awful.

"I don't think it helps that they are underground. It's like going down into Hades."

And if the descent to the toilets is redolent of a trip to the Greek underworld then the security man clutching a clipboard at the bottom of the stairs yesterday could have been Cerberus, the three-headed watchdog who guards the realm of the dead.

"All right mate," he repeated, not looking up from his clipboard as visitors to the toilet passed by.

In Greek mythology Pluto, the god of the underworld, sits on a throne made of ebony - but there are no thrones in Brighton station's toilets.

The stalls have long since been removed so commuters who enter are confronted with a huge, dimly-lit open space with a metal trough the width of the room at the far end.

The three-tone colour scheme - seasick green, snot green and slime green - does nothing to mitigate the gloomy aura which has settled in this depressing sub-troposphere.

Big Issue seller Brian Everleigh, 60, is among the facility's best customers, visiting three or four times a day.

He said: "They are a lot cleaner than they used to be but you need somewhere in a toilet where you can sit down.

"They used to have stalls down there and people pulled all the cisterns off the wall. But that's Brighton for you, isn't it? That's what people around here do."

Indeed, vandalism has been the biggest problem for the toilets' managers, rail operator Southern, in keeping them looking respectable.

Among the chief critics of the subterranean toilets have been Brighton Pavilion MP David Lepper and influential architect Lord Rogers, a personal friend of Tony Blair and the man who designed Canary Wharf, the Millennium Dome and the Pompidou Centre in Paris.

He said last year: "It was ghastly. There was no mirror and you had to wee in a trough and it was absolutely disgusting.

"This is one of the most beautiful cities in Britain.

"I just thought, it's going to cost about 50p to solve this, to put a mirror up. This is the fourth richest nation in the world, you know."

Lord Rogers was one of almost seven million travellers to pass through Brighton station last year, including Tony Blair.

But not all believe the toilets are beyond redemption.

Malcolm Burden, 33, said: "I don't think it is fair to say the toilets are disgusting.

"They are architecturally Victorian and they could certainly do with some sprucing up.

"But I think they should keep the toilets they have got and save money. At the end of the day, a toilet is just a toilet."