West Oxfordshire District Council is flushed with success after five of its public loos were crowned as top class toilets.

The council has received top ratings for its public conveniences in the national Loo of the Year competition just two years after the council spent a pretty penny bringing the latrines up to scratch.

Its top rated toilet is at the Spendlove Centre car park in Charlbury which received the British Toilet Association’s highest award of five stars.

Four other loos in the district were handed a four-star rating.

The accolades come just two weeks after Oxford City Council launched a review of its run-down public toilets.

West Oxfordshire District Council began overhauling its toilets two years ago after recognising how important they were for visiting tourists.

It has since stumped up £800,000.

Cabinet member for environment David Harvey said: “One of the most important things we do is welcome people from all over the world to West Oxfordshire. The archetypal view of British public conveniences is the awful stench of ammonia and cleaning crystals and we wanted to change all of that.

“We want it to be pleasant for people to use our public conveniences. We decided to demolish, rebuild and refurbish every single one of our public conveniences at a cost of almost £1m.

“Toilets are a big issue for members of the public. If you’ve driven here from London with your family one of the first things you might want to do is visit the public conveniences.

“If you’re going to spend money advertising West Oxfordshire in Europe and around Britain as being a lovely place to visit, you want to make each part of the experience a wholesome and pleasant one.”

As part of the revamp, West Oxfordshire’s toilets are now cleaned three times a day and the council also introduced a 10p charge to stop them being vandalised.

Toilets in the competition are judged on more than 100 criteria including cleanliness, hygiene, standard of the wash basins and provision of soap and hand drying equipment, as well as the state of locks and handles.

The council will now receive a plaque showing the grade of each toilet.

Director of the British Toilet Association, Mike Bone, said: “These are all very good toilets and we applaud West Oxfordshire District Council in their efforts in improving their toilets.”

The toilets given four stars were Chipping Norton Town Hall, Bampton Town Hall, Black Bourton Road car park in Carterton, and Browns Lane in Woodstock.