The scandal of primitive privies for gents

SIR – I would like to challenge Susan Cunningham (Letters, March 3) on her claim that women need “at least twice the number of facilities [lavatories] as men”.

The research that she quotes compares the time a woman takes to use a proper flushing lavatory in a lockable compartment, with appropriate handwashing and drying facilities, with the time a man takes to use a urinal in a communal area with (usually) inadequate or inaccessible washing facilities. Where facilities are common – on trains, aeroplanes and a few public buildings – there is no significant difference in time taken: it is about 90 seconds for both sexes.

It is half a century since the enactment of the first Sex Discrimination Act, yet still well over 95 per cent of public conveniences, lavatories in public buildings and in private buildings open to the public (such as theatres and hotels) provide their male users with significantly fewer and poorer quality facilities than those provided to women. The provision of urinals in what is effectively a public area offers neither privacy to users nor security for their possessions. Urinals are also unhygienic.

The simplest and fairest way to eliminate any disadvantage to either gender would be to provide unisex lavatory cubicles, with each either containing its own washbasin, or accessed from a communal lobby with handwashing facilities.

David Seex

London E2