Hard gloss surface

TBH I think it would look worse than tiles even if they are a pain to cut. Even uPVC might look better. I just don't think you will get a cleanable finish with paint. White tiles are cheap, get a tile saw and persevere is what I would do.

Do it in steel / stainless steel & then get it powder coated or stove enamelled?

B&Q do plain high gloss white doors for kitchen units - made out of the usual MDF. The finish is superb. Could you cut one of these to suit - and perhaps use something else as a backing for added strength?

It did occur to me that a single piece of ceramic cut from a large (30 x 60) tile might do the job: I wonder how many of them I would need to buy to cut the curve for each side? (;-)

=A0 London SW

Well, I had that same thought - in fact I bought a door and side panel for this very job, so there wouldn't be any problem with colour matching. I must admit I'd rather thought the finish would be too fragile - maybe I should try bashing it a bit to see if it might be robust enough......

Any high gloss paint finish won't be that robust.

You say it must be white - but is everything white? If you're doing a wood floor using real wood rather than laminate you could use that for the worktop - that's what I've done in my bathroom for the same as you and it looks stunning.

The doors will be covered with a pvc foil rather than paint, though, and those are pretty soft.

I agree that paint is also likely to get scratched up pretty quickly though. Even gloss proper (melamine-based) laminates aren't really suitable for horizontal applications.

Having recently used some B&Q white high gloss kitchen unit doors as source material for bathroom cabinets, I assure you they are melamine and not PVC finish. (At least the ones I used!) So long as not being used for kitchen type activities, I'd suggest they would be fine. Certainly much tougher than any paint job.

That's interesting as I have them too. And had to cut one down, height wise, using a circular saw. The finish both chipped and melted slightly. I assumed it was some type of paint.

Heh heh - isn't that just transport protection? Removing it gives a brighter white...

Hmmm - what I got were some doors from the "it Kitchens Gloss White Slab" range. They didn't seem to melt for me - but maybe I was lucky? Certainly quite a solid, decent thickness layer - whatever it is!

Well, since that's the range I got the door and cabinet side from, there's a good chance it should match! Looking at it, the area is pretty small (the bit each side of a cloakroom sink on a 600mm cabinet, 300mm deep), so it shouldn't have much chance of getting too ruined. I'm sure a large ceramic tile cut to size would be the best solution really, but a cabinet door is a lot more reliable to cut the curve into. No easier than the wood Dave suggested - I had considered something 'real-woody' and I'm sure it would look great in most situations but, sadly, my house already suffers from having too many different species of wood festooned around the place, so I'm reluctant to add to the overall confusion(!)

Impossible. ;-)

It will be a pvc foil at that price point (and from that source).