Public toilets, locations, openings and closures
Case reference FOI2026/02278
Received 16 October 2026
Published 13 November 2026
Request
Under the Freedom of Information Act 2000, please provide the following information about public toilets in your council area.
By "public toilets" I mean toilets the council owns, leases, manages or funds that anyone can use without being a customer, including those in council buildings. Please exclude staff-only toilets and businesses in a community toilet scheme.
1. Please list every public toilet the council has operated at any point between 16 October 2016 and the date of this request, including any that have since closed. For each toilet, please include:
* Name
* Address and postcode
* Town or City located
* Location (grid reference, latitude and longitude, or UPRN, whichever you hold)
* Gender available (Men, Women, Gender neutral)
* Accessibility features available? (please provide yes or no to features: step-free access, wheelchair-accessible cubicle, ambulant cubicle with grab rails, RADAR key needed, Changing Places toilet)
* Baby-changing facilities (yes or no)
* Opening hours
* Charge to use (£0.00 format)
* Date opened (month and year, or "before October 2016")
* Date closed, sold or transferred, if relevant (month and year)
* For closed, sold or transferred toilets: what happened to it, and the main reason recorded
For toilets that have closed, please include whichever of these details you still hold.
2. Any closures, transfers or openings planned for 2026/27 or 2027/28.
3. Whether the council runs a community toilet scheme, and if so, how many businesses take part.
4. Total annual spending on public toilets for each financial year from 2016/17 to 2025/26.
Response
Thank you for your recent request under the Freedom of Information Act.
Please find the response to your queries below:
Under the Freedom of Information Act 2000, could you please provide the following information:
Under the Freedom of Information Act 2000, please provide the following information about public toilets in your council area.
By "public toilets" I mean toilets the council owns, leases, manages or funds that anyone can use without being a customer, including those in council buildings. Please exclude staff-only toilets and businesses in a community toilet scheme.
1. Please list every public toilet the council has operated at any point between 16 October 2016 and the date of this request, including any that have since closed. For each toilet, please include:
* Name
* Address and postcode
* Town or City located
* Location (grid reference, latitude and longitude, or UPRN, whichever you hold)
* Gender available (Men, Women, Gender neutral)
* Accessibility features available? (please provide yes or no to features: step-free access, wheelchair-accessible cubicle, ambulant cubicle with grab rails, RADAR key needed, Changing Places toilet)
* Baby-changing facilities (yes or no)
* Opening hours
* Charge to use (£0.00 format)
* Date opened (month and year, or "before October 2016")
* Date closed, sold or transferred, if relevant (month and year)
* For closed, sold or transferred toilets: what happened to it, and the main reason recorded
For toilets that have closed, please include whichever of these details you still hold.
Information about the public toilets available in the area is published on our website and can be found via the following link:
https://www.guildford.gov.uk/publictoilets
As such, the information you require can be found from publicly available sources and consequentially under Section 21 of the Act, we are not required to provide information in response to a request if it is already reasonably accessible.
I can confirm that as of 2016/17 the Council maintained and funded 18 public toilets and as of 2021/22 the Council maintained and funded 17 public toilets, however we do not hold details of the locations of these historic toilets. Three toilet facilities were closed in 2022/23 following a public consultation – please find details of the consultation results attached.
Please note that the same 2022/23 consultation process also approved the withdrawal of council grant funding to the public toilet facilities in Ash, Ripley and Shere – whilst these toilets remain open, they became the responsibility of the parishes to fund and maintain directly themselves and are no longer looked after by Guildford Borough Council. Therefore, the actual number of public toilet facilities maintained and funded directly by Guildford Borough Council is now 11.
Guildford Borough Council’s toilets have always been free to use and have never required a fee/charge to access.
Please note that our toilets have both separate male and female toilet facilities on offer and all toilets have full toilet facilities.
2. Any closures, transfers or openings planned for 2026/27 or 2027/28.
No.
3. Whether the council runs a community toilet scheme, and if so, how many businesses take part.
No.
4. Total annual spending on public toilets for each financial year from 2016/17 to 2025/26.
|
|
Spend on Public Conveniences: |
|
2020/21 |
£36,722.74 |
|
2021/22 |
£32,598.56 |
|
2022/23 |
£23,023.73 |
|
2023/24 |
£11,573.86 |
|
2024/25 |
£19,777.60 |
|
2025/26 |
£30,351.18 |
Please note that we do not hold this data back to 2016/17.
Yours sincerely
FOI Team
Guildford Borough Council
Documents
This is Guildford Council's response to a freedom of information (FOI) or environmental information regulations (EIR) request.
You can browse our other responses or make a new FOI request.