As anyone with small children knows, there's never a toilet around when they need one and we're all given to the tree wee even if there are no trees around!
The Great British Public Toilet Map, the UK's largest database of publicly accessible toilets, has revealed on World Toilet Day that public toilet provision in certain parts of the country is severely lacking, with six councils having only four public toilets each and some areas with only one public toilet per 70,000 residents, drastically over the average of one toilet per 17,354 residents.
The data analysis, supported by the Open Data Institute, draws upon data collected by crowdsourcing, open data and FOI requests. The project, launched in 2014, was created by the Helen Hamlyn Centre for Design at the Royal College of Art and allows the public to find toilets that meet their specific needs when away from home.
With the NHS stating that between three and six million people in the UK experience a degree of urinary incontinence alone, the aim of the The Great British Public Toilet Map is to build a national open database of public toilet locations across the UK. This database can be used to help people find toilets quickly or be more confident about trips they are planning, improving the lives of those experiencing continence concerns, whose quality of life is limited by a lack of available public facilities.
How many toilets do we have?
The UK has 10,738 publicly accessible toilets of which 80 per cent are public toilets (council-run) and 17 per cent are other publicly accessible toilets. Although over 400 councils in the UK provide public toilets, they are not legally obliged to do so, meaning that many councils rely on privately owned properties to provide toilets for residents to use.
Of these 17 per cent:
The good, the bad and the crappy
The analysis looked at toilet provision in 381 council areas within the UK (not including Northern Ireland). The full league table of UK public toilet provision is here.
Areas with most publicly accessible toilets (by council boundary)
This top three includes the UK’s largest (Highland) and smallest (City of London) council by area. These councils all experience high visitor numbers, showing the link between high frequency of tourists and larger number of toilet facilities.
Conversely, council areas with fewest toilets are Darlington, Flintshire, Melton, North Kesteven, Redditch and South Ribble with just four toilets listed each.