Yes...

John Tanner, city councillor, board member for a Cleaner, Greener Oxford I was thrilled when the city council agreed £420,000 to “improve the quality of toilets in and beyond the city centre”.

I would like to see the popular Gloucester Green toilets brought up to first class standard as part of that investment.

We will also use some of the money to smarten up facilities elsewhere in the city. There are already 33 toilets open to the public in Oxford. Twenty four are operated by the city council and nine are part of the community toilet scheme – including the Jam Factory, the King’s Arms, Marks & Spencers, O’Neils, the Oxford Retreat, Pizza Hut and Wahoo.

The Victorian loos in St Giles have steep steps and are surrounded by busy traffic. The Castle Street toilets attracted lots of vandalism and drug taking. But I do think we could look at opening some toilets beyond 5pm.

At this year’s ‘Loo of the Year’ awards Oxford was judged to have the 14th best public toilets in the country.

I want see Oxford up there with Brighton, Westminster and Blackpool having the very best toilets in Great Britain.

The first step is to create one outstanding toilet.

No...

Tony Augarde, freelance writer Some Oxford lavatories may need refurbishing, but it would be completely mad to spend large amounts of the money on turning Gloucester Green toilets into some sort of hotel.

The money should be used for improving all our toilets and reopening those that have been closed.

Oxford needs more lavatories with the basic facilities – for residents as well as tourists – but there are only five or six public conveniences in central Oxford, and they all close at 5pm.

Most Oxford citizens think there are too few toilets, yet the city council closed several of them.

Perhaps the saddest closure was the lavatory in the middle of St Giles, a fine example of Victorian workmanship.

The council pretended that it was dangerous to cross the road there.

The Castle Street toilets were also closed, even though this area is now crammed with passengers coming for buses.

The £420,000 should be spent on renovating the Castle Street toilets – and other lavatories – instead of trying to make the Gloucester Green conveniences “a world-class facility”.