Brighton City Council is planning to introduce a 50p charge at five of the city’s busiest public toilets this year, in anticipation of generating an additional £70,000 in income.

The proposals for the “high-volume” sites across Brighton and Hove have been met with anger from local residents, as well as the authority’s own equality committees.

“Representatives of the Youth Council and Older People’s Council said that fees would especially affect those who needed to use toilets more often or more urgently,” reported the BBC.

“The council’s own equality impact assessment of the proposal said the plans ‘may have a disproportionate impact on disabled people, children, older people, homeless people and general accessibility’ and would affect ‘all potential public toilet users.’”

Council deputy leader Jacob Taylor told the Place Overview and Scrutiny Committee that all other council-owned toilets would remain free to use, and the “limited proposal” focused solely on “really high-volume city centre toilets.”

Why not go all the way in and really maximise the revenue raising options and stick a few glory holes into the offering. The notion that a tourist city, a major one at that, should provide at least the basic facilities such as toilets seems to be lost on Brighton City Council that sees its visitors as fair game for a pissing tax on top of a potential city tax.