As an architect, I often attend community consultation meetings to hear what members of the public feel that their neighbourhoods lack. One frustration is always bitterly clear: why are there no public toilets any more?
There are few issues more emblematic of the deterioration of civic infrastructure in Britain. Local authority spending on public loos has halved since 2010, with the number of lavatories maintained by councils dropping 19% between 2015 and 2021 alone.
With no legal requirement for local authorities to provide toilets, our once extensive network of civic lavatories has been abandoned, sold or turned into novelty bars, leaving gaping holes in basic sanitary provision. In the mid-1960s, for instance, there were more than 80 public toilets in Newcastle; today there are no council-run facilities in the city at all.
As loos close, libraries, pubs and cafes come under pressure as the only places left that Brits can go when they need to go. We’ve all snuck into a McDonald’s to use the lav when caught short, but for small businesses and cultural venues, the strain of compensating for the under-provision of public amenities can be intense. I recently worked for a gallery whose staff were overwhelmed by the stream of people seeking out their toilets because the adjacent major train station didn’t have any of its own.
The chronic lack of accessible loos disproportionately affects already disadvantaged groups, who must often choose between the humiliation of peeing in the street, deliberately dehydrating themselves or staying at home. Research by the Royal Society for Public Health reveals that 43% of people with medical conditions who need to use the toilet frequently feel tied to a small area near their home, because they fear they will not be able to access the facilities they need farther afield.
Unequal toilet provision has a long history. The first public flushing toilets were unveiled at the Great Exhibition in 1851, but it took a further four decades before permanent public loos were built for women as well as men. The issue of ladies’ lavatories was initially so contentious that some became the targets of sabotage. In Camden, north London, opponents of new women’s toilets on the high street intentionally crashed horse-drawn cabs into a site earmarked for the facilities. Misogynists of the day believed women belonged at home, so opposing equal access to public loos was a way to bar women from public life.
Today, many British public toilets that were closed by local authorities during the pandemic remain shuttered, but it doesn’t have to be like this: municipalities around the world have opened ambitious new facilities that put our lamentable loos to shame. Norway has turned roadside restrooms into an art form by commissioning striking new toilets along remote scenic routes to support rural tourism and haulage.
Meanwhile in Shibuya, Tokyo, city officials have recently unveiled 17 new facilities, sponsored by the non-profit Nippon Foundation, that were designed by some of the best architects in the world. Serpentine pavilion designer Sou Fujimoto has created a sinuous white lavatory block incorporating a communal handwashing area with taps at varying heights, while Pritzker Architecture prize-winner Shigeru Ban’s cubicle designs incorporate panes of colourful glass that turn opaque when in use.
Ongoing maintenance – overseen by a partnership between the Nippon Foundation, the local authority and the Shibuya City Tourism Association – is taken just as seriously as the architecture. The toilet-cleaning team are properly recognised for the critical role they play, with overalls designed by the creative director of Parisian fashion brand Kenzo. It is hard to imagine the respect paid to the janitors maintaining Tokyo’s new public loos being replicated in the UK, where cleaners are some of the lowest paid workers in society.
The gulf between other countries’ generous new toilets and Britain’s facilities reveals how disgracefully far the UK is falling behind its peers in providing sanitary facilities. Yet there are some signs of positive change. In 2020, the government granted business rates relief on public loos, with Tory MP Cherilyn Mackrory declaring in the House of Commons, “public toilets are a public service, not a business”.
Japan and Norway’s architecturally outstanding toilets show that public loos needn’t be cruddy amenities of last resort, but can be attractive sites that can offer decent jobs, civic luxury – and even become tourist attractions. No longer taxing toilets is a good first step, but it will take more radical action to reverse decades of neglect and finally make Britain a place where it is possible to use the bathroom with ease and dignity.
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Alberte Lauridsen is an architect and co-founder of the feminist architecture practice Edit