THE latest stage of a £450,000 project to give Oxford world-class public toilets will soon be completed.

Oxford City Council has spent £100,000 over the past seven months improving the public toilets in Gloucester Green.

It is part of the scheme to bring all of the 21 public toilets in the city up to scratch over the next few years.

The Market Street toilets revamp was completed earlier this year at a cost of £75,000 and on Thursday, November 14, the toilets in Gloucester Green will be opened for the first time since they shut in April ahead of their makeover.

Jeremy Smith, the features editor of the Oxford Mail, is helping the city council carry out the revamp as Oxford’s ‘toilet tsar’.

He said: “Thank goodness they’re only a month late in opening – I’m not sure my bladder could have survived the strain any longer.

“Although I have yet to see the finished product in Gloucester Green, if they match those already refurbished in Market Street, the council will have done a superb job, both for those of us who live here and those just visiting.”

All the facelifted toilets will have existing stainless steel fittings replaced with a hygienic composite material. They will also get vandal-resistant dryers and the council is promising better-quality soap and lighting.

There will also be hooks for bags and coats and easy-to-use locks.

The Gloucester Green toilets have also been expanded to include more cubicles for women.

The council had looked into the idea of charging for the use of the Gloucester Green toilets but has decided they will remain free.

However, a toilet that can be used overnight will be on a pay-to-use basis to make it less open to abuse, although the price to use it has not been revealed.

John Tanner, the council’s executive member for a cleaner, green Oxford, said: “The costs of charging don’t make it worthwhile for us to do so.

“Oxford is an important centre for shoppers, tourists and students and we need to have the very best toilets, so people visit again and the city prospers. It’s an inconvenience not to have had the Gloucester Green toilets open and I think they’re going to be a very high standard of toilet.

“I hope to be the first through the door when they reopen.”