Almost half the public toilets across the district are to be closed down because the Council can't afford to implement stringent new disability laws.

Seventeen facilities will shut after a review showed £100,000 would have to be spent converting them by widening doorways and installing ramps.

The adaptations are required under the Disabled Discrimination Act which comes into force in October next year.

But Audrey Raistrick, of the Forum Focused on Pensioner Power, said the closure programme discriminated against elderly people.

"The Council is there to serve our needs and what it is doing is scandalous," she said.

"Many pensioners have health problems which means they have to use the toilet regularly. What are they supposed to do? Go in the street?"

Councillor Keith Thomson, who is fighting to save a toilet in St Enoch's Road, Wibsey, from closure, said the Council did not have a statutory obligation to provide toilets for public use and the cost of running them was often high.

"But to close them because they do not meet disabled standards seems ludicrous," he said.

Coun Thomson (Ind, Wibsey) added: "The toilets in Wibsey provide a useful service for people who live in the village. They are near a bus stop on a main road and are in a good clean condition.

"The common-sense approach would be to leave them open for as long as possible or until structural repair forces them to close."

National campaign group Incontact, which helps people with bladder and bowel problems, also said it was dismayed by the decision.

Spokesman Kerry Lee said: "People with bladder and bowel problems find it hard to go out and have to plan their journey around public toilets.

"With a large number of these closing each year, routine things like shopping can become even more difficult."

A Council cleansing spokesman said that of the 38 public toilets it provided in the district, 17 will close, eight will be upgraded to comply with the Disability Discrimination Act and four others will be "significantly" improved.

"We also plan to develop four new sites at Bingley, Shipley, Keighley and Haworth," he said.

"We will continue to ensure that toilets are provided in all the district's major shopping areas, town centres, tourism and leisure centres."

The following nine toilets will start to close within a month: Peel Park View, Otley Road, Undercliffe; Main Road, East Morton; Main Road, Steeton, Keighley; Myrtle Park, Bingley; Shaw Top, Oxenhope; Thackley Corner, Thackley; Penistone Hill, Haworth.

Toilets in Granby Street, Queensbury, and Station Road, Esholt, will close and be relocated as superloos.

The following will close when repairs are needed: St Enoch's Road, Wibsey; Kipping Lane, Thornton; Church Street, Cullingworth; Station Road, Burley in Wharfedale; Sugar Hill, Addingham; Crossroads Park, Haworth; Lower Town, Oxenhope; Queen's Road, Saltaire.