Euston, we have a problem.

Huge contribution this week from a member of the public - nearly 100 toilets updated for Richmond-upon-Thames long-running Community Toilet Scheme. Thank you!

Thank you for your support over the years, especially our star contributors and those who let us know the map has helped. Your feedback keeps us going!

We’ve big plans for the next ten years! We just switched to a clearer OSM basemap. Then we trimmed our name to The Toilet Map. Next, our indefatigable volunteer developer @olliethinks.bsky.social is building a blog so we can shout louder about new loos (and highlight where the map needs more love).

And what about that data? It’s available for reuse under open licence (CC-BY, like an Open Government Licence). And it’s used by bus drivers, delivery drivers, cyclists, local councils and continence charities, as well as by developers and university researchers keen to see what else it can reveal.

Piloted from RCA research (2012), version-1 was funded by Social Tech Fund. In 2016, with @odihq.bsky.social funds, we made toiletmap.org.uk/Explorer (recently prettified by a Github volunteer) to interrogate the data. We had lots of help from #opendata enthusiasts in Twitter’s happier days, too.

We’ve been able to grow despite 34% of ‘public toilets’ being closed since 2000 (Valuation Office Agency Data, via Hansard). The UK’s toilet provision is complicated and until now, unmapped. We want to make it easy to know where to go when you need to go.

Because of you! Adding, editing (and removing) toilets through our website toiletmap.org.uk. This helps everyone, particularly people who need to know there will be toilets to get to work, go to new places, enjoy the outdoors, and simply go about their daily lives.

On this #WorldToiletDay 🚽 we celebrate our tenth birthday of The Toilet Map!

Launched on 19-Nov 2014 with 9000 loos, The Great British Public Toilet Map has grown to 15000 publicly accessible toilets - any the public can use that aren’t ‘customer-only’.

But how do we keep finding loos? 🧵(1/7)

And what about that data? It’s available for reuse under open licence (CC-BY, like an Open Government Licence). And it’s used by bus drivers, delivery drivers, cyclists, local councils and continence charities, as well as by developers and university researchers keen to see what else it can reveal.

Piloted in 2012 (TACT3/ESRC), version one was funded by Social Tech Fund. In 2016, with @odihq.bsky.social money, we made toiletmap.org.uk/Explorer (recently prettified by a Github volunteer) to interrogate the data. We had lots of help from #opendata enthusiasts in Twitter’s happier days, too.

We’ve been able to grow despite 34% of ‘public toilets’ being closed since 2000 (Valuation Office Agency Data, via Hansard). The UK’s toilet provision is complicated and until now, unmapped. We want to make it easy to know where to go when you need to go.

Because of you! Adding, editing (and removing) toilets through our website toiletmap.org.ukW. This helps everyone, particularly people who need to know there will be toilets to get to work, go to new places, enjoy the outdoors, and simply go about their daily lives. hate