In response to your editorial (Public spaces need public conveniences, 24 April), our research has found that one of the biggest barriers preventing the restoration of existing provision or building new provision of public toilets is our wider cultural taboo of bodily functions.

Time and again we have found that regeneration documents refer to public toilets as “amenities”, “necessities”, or “facilities”. Our research has also found that while large percentages of the UK population want more public toilets, nearly the same percentage would not use a public toilet, because of the taboo reputation such provision also carries.

It is not simply a question of “build them and they will be used”. There is also an education issue, to highlight how important provision is, and shift the sense of a dirty and unloved space that invites negative behaviours such as vandalism.

Provision has to be accessible to users of all ages and abilities, but also durable. Often, the focus on preventing vandalism has taken precedence in design, making provision unwelcoming and further diminishing the availability of public toilets we actually want to use. More public toilets are needed for our public spaces, but the wider complexities of our attitudes to them have to be considered in their planning and design.
Prof Jo-Anne Bichard and Gail Ramster
Public Toilets Research Unit, Royal College of Art

Thanks for your leader on repositioning toilets as a valued part of the public realm. Twenty years of campaigning for decent provision in north London shows that this will not be an easy problem to solve. Part of the answer rests with statutory legislation, which the government has recently made clear is not on its agenda.

Only seven of London’s 33 councils have been awarded Pride in Place funding. How many will allocate it to toilets has yet to be seen. While Brent council is to be praised for committing to renew facilities in Roundwood Park, following an energetic local campaign, it is making no effort to tackle the conundrums presented by the mile-long Kilburn High Road.

It’s evident that there can be no solution there or elsewhere without intensive maintenance, which requires a revenue upgrade. Tokyo teaches us that public toilets can also bring joy and civic pride.
John Miles
Kilburn Older Voices Exchange, London

Thank you for raising the issue of the decline in public toilet provision. Not only should such facilities be widely available, they should be free. Using a public toilet is not a discretionary decision. They are an item of basic infrastructure, every bit as necessary as pavements.

The fact that we can’t have a sensible discussion about this without political/media/social media-fuelled outrage is absurd. As a result, governments resort to convoluted approaches to raising money and local authorities are forced to devalue the public realm. Like many things we need and value, public toilets are community assets that cost money and need to be paid for. There is no magic equation that escapes this fact.
Mel Clinton
Cheddar, Somerset

I live with the after-effects of prostate cancer treatment. May I recommend the Bladder and Bowel Community’s Just Can’t Wait card? There is a huge variation in the local provision of public loos, but in “convenience deserts” my card gives me courage and legitimacy to ask anyone, anywhere, when I have to go – and I have never been refused.
Dr John Crossman
Sherborne, Dorset