LIP-SHAPED urinals have set tongues wagging in a Dartford garden centre this week.

The newly-refurbished men’s toilets at Hawley Garden Centre, Hawley Road, are the first part of a modern revamp for the site.

They feature a pair of bright red lips, which the centre’s staff hope will prove a new attraction.

Shop manager at the centre, Sue Knott, said: "We staff think they're a really brilliant idea, we keep having a look and a giggle at this pair of bright red lips in the toilets."

Hawley Garden Centre director, Janice East, chose the design after seeing it on a Dutch website.

She said: “When I first started looking, I wanted a floral theme, something like tulips, but instead I got two lips!

“I had to have them. We just wanted something original, as far as I know we’re the only people in the UK to have this design.”

Meike van Schijndel, who designed the urinals for Bathroom Maina, based in Utrecht, says that the urinals are made for the imagination.

The urinals started life as a wash basin, but have proved more popular in their current form, gracing the toilets of bars and restaurants as well as in private homes.

“The urinals make the bathroom sexy, it’s an exciting design,” she said.

The same design had to be pulled from a Virgin plane redisign in 2004 after complaints that they were inappropriate. But Meike said: “If people find them rude, then it’s their imagination which is rude, not the urinals.”

The toilets were officially opened by Dartford Mayor Councillor Patrick Coleman on Friday.

Cllr Coleman said: “The garden centre has been very supportive of me in the past, and I use the nursery myself from time to time, so I felt it only right to lend them my support for this launch.

“I’m really here to open their whole refurbishment intentions, of which the toilets are a start, but I suppose it’s important to know that they are making these facilities clean and decent for all of the people who use them.”