State of public toilets - 'It is time to consider a small charge'

the next time some publicity-hungry performer wants to stage a Fringe show in one of Edinburgh's public toilets they might just struggle to find a convenience that their audience would want to set foot in.

As well as shutting half the city's 30 loos, the council proposes abandoning plans to spend 400,000 on much-needed improvements, even though this was a priority of the local Lib Dems before they went into a council coalition with the SNP.

The nation may be getting used to Lib Dem U-turns, but the state of the city's facilities is more than an inconvenience - it is a major bugbear to visitors and residents alike.

It will do little for our reputation internationally if tourists find our public toilets too disgusting to use, or closed. The council has talked of encouraging pubs and shops to open their facilities to the public, but councillors can't expect that to work without offering incentives to businesses.

Besides, there are a few basic things the council simply has to do, and making sure that people in the city can go to a clean and safe toilet when they need to is surely one.

These latest cutbacks therefore take us in entirely the wrong direction. Do we have to remind the council again that it would find half the money it needs for the loo improvements if it dumped its propaganda newspaper? What do we need most: Outlook or outhouses?

And if we can genuinely no longer afford to offer free access to good public toilets then it may be time to consider a small charge, say 20p, as is made in some railway stations, but with exemptions for OAPs and possibly mums-to-be and young kids.

It would not be universally popular, but if that is the price that has to be paid for supervised, safe and clean toilets then most people would surely see it as pennies well spent.

Lost the plot?

The cot death storyline in BBC's EastEnders was always going to be controversial.

There are few more traumatic events than the death of a baby, and any family which has been touched by such a tragedy will have memories dragged up by the row.

But, as Katrina Kirkwood writes here today, it also means that a subject is being discussed which people often find too difficult to talk about. She thinks that can have a positive effect and may help the healing process - and as a mum who lost her own son, Arran, she should know.

Of course, this being EastEnders, the plot is more complex than that, with the grieving mother swapping her dead child for someone else's. That's far-fetched, and possibly sick, but what do we expect from a soap?