The Great British Public Toilet Map is an on-going project to map the UK’s public toilets using open data. It began in 2010 when only one council was publishing toilet data and is soon to relaunch with a database of over 5000 facilities. Gail Ramster describes an outsider’s pursuit of local council open data and the obstacles encountered, including Ordnance Survey licensing, FOI legislation and the need for a standard format.

Ramster is a Research Associate at Royal College of Art working on people-centred design research.