The Disability Discrimination Act is a well-meaning attempt to ensure that disabled people have the same access to public services as the able-bodied. Those services include public lavatories, which must be made accessible to the disabled by October of next year.

Unfortunately it seems that the architects of the Act either did not fully consider the financial consequences for local authorities of such demands or considered them but disregarded them. Bringing every public lavatory in the Bradford district up to the required standard would cost a small fortune at a time when council taxpayers are being threatened with yet another inflation-busting increase next year.

The Council's response to this is draconian. It plans to close nine of its 38 public conveniences immediately and another eight when repairs to them become necessary, with other sites being upgraded to comply with the Disability Discrimination Act at a cost of £105,000.

As a result, the popular Myrtle Park at Bingley will lose its lavatories. Several other villages and suburbs around the district will lose their roadside urinals.

Because the authority cannot afford to make these and various other conveniences accessible to the disabled, they will in future be accessible to no-one.

Barring a drastic change in attitudes which would see pubs and shops allowing non-customers to use their private facilities, these closures are bound to cause problems for the public. Although the conveniences might vanish, the need for them will not.

It will be ironic if a humane Act aimed at creating a more civilised society leads to an increase in uncivilised behaviour out of sheer necessity.