Dan deserves Heaps of praise for tackling toilet shortage issue - Susan Dalgety

A motion on public access to toilets will be discussed by councillors on Thursday

I have lost count of the number of times I have had to nip in to a coffee chain for a single espresso, when all I really want (or need) is the code for their ladies’ toilet.

And a few weeks ago, when faced with the prospect of a free, three-hour bus journey with no on-board facilities or a two-train trip costing more than £20, I opted for rail. Trains have toilets, don’t they. Smelly ones perhaps, but when you are desperate you simply hold your nose.

So three cheers to Green Councillor Dan Heap, whose motion on public access to toilets will be discussed by councillors on Thursday. Councillor Heap wants all Edinburgh Leisure facilities, the Edinburgh International Conference Centre and other city council-owned companies to open their facilities to the public.

I am not so sure the good folk who run the EICC will be so keen to see streams of middle-aged women asking for the direction to the ladies, but given that the loos in the city’s public libraries are free to use by the public, I think Councillor Heap may be on to something.

Hold on! A quick peak at the city council’s map of accessible toilets (Google ‘Edinburgh city council map of public toilets’) suggests that people can already use Edinburgh Leisure’s 21 existing facilities as well as 14 community centres, five neighbourhood offices and one museum. In fact, there are 102 facilities in total, including 29 public toilets. The map is so dense, however, I can’t make out which museum. Perhaps all will become clear at the meeting of the Policy and Sustainability Committee.

Whatever the facts of the matter, the urgent need for an accessible network of public loos remains. If the council can’t afford to build new public toilets in the areas where they are desperately needed, such as Portobello, where demand far outstrips supply, then it will have to come up with cost-effective alternatives. And urgently.