SIR: You do well to urge Bolton council to build more public toilets (leading article May 22). I hope they pay more attention to you than they have to us.

Last month we asked them for an undertaking that they would not demolish any closed toilets, firstly because the new government - which will come within a year - may be more inclined to permit reasonable expenditure on essential services, and secondly because it may be more inclined to give a helping hand to the Public Conveniences Bill, which has already been presented to Parliament by Jon Owen Jones MP and which would require local authorities to provide public conveniences on a scale related to population size. In reply we were told: "It is not the policy of the Council to retain each and every public convenience that is closed and therefore it is unlikely that the buildings you have identified .... will all be retained into the future."

It seems obvious, therefore, that valuable capital assets are to be sacrificed for the sake of short-term revenue savings. What folly!

A Horsfall, Co-ordinator

Dept 50, 1 Newton Street, Manchester

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