DRUNK men urinating in doorways is one of the most common complaints at closing time — so why are we so adverse to giving them a bucket?

The reintroduction of “pissoirs” in Paris has sparked a mixed reaction, with some Parisians writing to the town hall in protest.

The new “intelligent urinals” are housed in flower boxes, painted bright red, have nearby signs advertising their presence, and have a straw layer that eliminates odour that can be removed and used for fertiliser.

Edinburgh and Glasgow have considered installing pissoirs on a number of occasions, in response to a flood of complaints about public urination, but they failed to make a splash with councillors who fear a similar public backlash.

However, drunk revellers – as well as those with medical conditions or just an inconveniently full bladder – are getting increasingly caught short.

A BBC investigation found a widespread decline in public toilets throughout the UK.

The Herald:

(These public toilets in Glasgow city centre are among those that have been closed in recent years. Picture: Michael Boyd)

Glasgow, Scotland’s biggest city, which once exported cast iron “Temples of Convenience” throughout the UK from its Victorian foundries, now maintains just eight public toilets.

Public toilets in Edinburgh have almost halved from 29 in 2010 to 17, despite frequent complaints about public urination in popular nightspots such as the Grassmarket and Cowgate.

Edinburgh announced plans to trial open air urinals in the Grassmarket in 2010, at a cost of £9,000 apiece, but the public pissoirs did not emerge. It floated a similar idea for The Meadows in 2013 but the public park remained a urinal free zone.

An Edinburgh Council spokeswoman said: “While the idea of open air toilets has been considered in the past, there are currently no plans to introduce these in Edinburgh.”

Aberdeen City Council is one of the only Scottish councils to successfully introduce public pissoirs in 2011, but they were withdrawn last year after the cost of maintaining them soared.

In a letter, a council community safety officer said: “The decision originally came due to environmental services no longer being able to collect and return the pissoirs as their vehicle required replacing.

“The cost implications of purchasing a new vehicle just to allow this service to continue was huge compared to the standard specification of vehicle they required.

“This, along with their recalculation of internal charges, wages, hours, meant there would be an increased internal cost from £9,000 per annum to more than £35,000 per annum.”

An Aberdeen City Council spokesman said: “The urinals were introduced around 2008 and attracted no strong comment, either approving or disapproving; they were well used however. There were no comments with regard to equality and indeed figures had shown that urinating in public was an issue almost exclusively among men. The initiative ended when the particular mode of transport used to move the urinals was no longer available.”

Raymond Martin, managing director of the British Toilet Association, said it was time to put toilet provision on par with other public services that cater for people’s basic needs.“There’s five things we need to do as human beings — eat, drink, sleep, breath and do the toilet,” he said. “Going to the toilet is as important as eating, sleeping, breathing and drinking,” he said. “If you don’t get rid of the poisons from your body you die.

“I’ve been saying to the Government, we don’t need high-speed trains, we don’t need extra aircraft carriers, but we have people with medical conditions, pregnant mums, families with young children, people who pay their taxes, who have nowhere to go if they need to perform a vital human function when they’re out on the street.

“I’ve spoken to politicians about it and they say, ‘Well, there’s plenty of bars they can go to’. Bars? That’s their answer. Anyone under 18 can’t go in a bar. Single mums can’t go into a bar.“Pregnant women or lone females might not be comfortable going into a bar. People from a religious or ethnic background who don’t drink alcohol can go into bars. That’s about two-thirds of the population.

“Toilets are about health and wellbeing, public dignity, public decency, equality and social inclusion.”

He has urged local authorities to install Urilifts, retractable public urinals that emerge from the ground at night and are installed in some cities in England.

“You wouldn’t even know it’s there during the day because it retracts into the pavement, but at 10pm you press a button and it rises out of the payment on an electronic pile,” he said.“It has three concave sides so a gentleman can stand up against it and urinate.

“Some are at major road junctions but it’s nearly impossible to see what’s going on, beyond a man standing at a structure.

“There are probably about 40 of these devices in Britain, including London, Winchester and Belfast in Shaftesbury Square and it works very well.

“People’s initial reaction is, ‘What? ‘We don’t want people peeing the streets!’ “But people are already peeing — and defecting — in shop doorways and they’re causing a bigger problem because squads have to go out and clean it up.”“Some shopkeepers refuse to clean it because they pay their taxes to councils who are responsible for cleaning it.”

The Pop Up Toilet Company also supplies facilities with doors as a safe option for women to use late at night.“You can’t really open public toilets late at night because of the danger from drug users, drunk people, or the risk of attack,” said Mr Martin.

“We recognise that you need something for girls, some of whom are running up dark alleyways in the middle of the night to pee which is frightening.

“I wouldn’t want my daughter running up a dark alleyway where they could be molested or injured because they can’t see properly.

“The Urilift costs £25,000 to buy but it’s self cleaning as when the unit goes back into the ground it cleans the walls.”

Mr Martin said the provision of public toilets should be a central government priority if the postcode lottery of provision throughout the UK is to be ended.

“The Government doesn’t give councils any money to provide public toilets and it never has,” he said.

“There is no legislation that says councils have to provide public toilets.

The council has not written any legislation other than legislation affecting cafes and restaurants.

“Councils have provided toilets for years because they don’t want residents to use parks, gardens, beaches and public spaces in towns and cities and they don’t want people urinating in the streets and exposing themselves in public.

“Councils were happy to pay for it until 2011, when the Government cut council budgets by 20 per cent and most of them closed public toilets at a stroke.

“The council has mandatory duties such as cleaning the streets, fixing the roads and education — and toilets come under discretionary services alongside things like park benches, litter bins and flowerbeds.

“The Audit Commission used to keep figures on the number of fines issued for public urination, but they stopped it some time ago.” The Government had “ washed its hands of public toilets”, he added.