Witney News - Loo of the Year awards for toilets

Loo of the Year awards for toilets

Five West Oxfordshire’s toilets have received recognition for their high standards in this year’s national Loo of the Year competition.

The annual awards, carried out by the British Toilet Association are to find the best place ‘to go’ when away from home. Toilets visited are rated on a ‘star’ basis – one star is poor and 5 stars are excellent.

The toilets at the Spendlove Centre car park in Charlbury gained an impressive 5 star excellent rating. The other four that were inspected received a four star rating and they are based at: Chipping Norton Town Hall, Bampton Town Hall, Black Bourton Road car park in Carterton, and Browns Lane in Woodstock.

They were judged using a checklist of over 100 different criteria for assessing male, female, accessible and baby change facilities.

West Oxfordshire District Council will now receive award grading certificates and a plaque for each site.

All the toilets visited are part of an £800,000 refurbishment programme which started in 2006. They all now have new modern facilities which include self-contained cubicles, gents’ urinals, baby changing and access for those with disabilities to comply with the Disability Discrimination Act (DDA).

Cllr David Harvey, Cabinet Member for Environment said, “We are proud of our new facilities and are pleased to see how well they rate when benchmarked alongside the best in the country, which includes toilets in hotels and restaurants as well as those provided by local authorities. Our improvement programme is bringing all our facilities up to a high standard

“Providing high quality and well maintained toilets is important and it is something that is appreciated by everyone.”

The refurbishment programme followed a Review which recognised that toilet facilities in the District needed to be improved. Better cleaning and maintenance of the toilets was also highlighted, and more frequent cleaning now takes place.