With the bladder of public finance under intolerable pressure, the future of the Council-funded public toilet looks bleak, causing consternation amongst those who fear the Prospect of being caught short with nowhere to relieve themselves. If that was not bad enough, a new threat has emerged; the prospect of receiving a fine for peeing in the countryside.

Dacorum Borough Council in Hertfordshire, it has been reported, have handed £88 fines to at least two men who stopped at laybys and went into the woods to relieve themselves. Apparently, the Council employed enforcers lying in wait in the laybys. One of the victims, who suffers from a weakened prostate, had stopped at a layby on the A41 near Kings Langley to take “a discreet wee”.

In the eyes of Dacorum, and other councils too, taking a wazz off-road and out of sight constitutes an offence of littering and perpetrators risk being fined, only 22% of the revenue derived this way going to the Council’s coffers, the balance going to the private contractor hired to enforce the law. Drive along any road and there are more egregious forms of littering which no one seems to do anything about. At least urinating leaves no visible lasting trace.

Many have accused Dacorum of taking the piss and there is every prospect of a lawyerly dust-up. A sign of a civilised country is to have enough public toilets to allow those who feel the need to relieve themselves in comfort. As we are no longer anywhere near that point, the only viable option for many is to take a discreet wazz out of sight. Wildlife and dogs urinate willy-nilly in the countryside and, as Darwin pointed out some time ago, we evolved from them. It might be an example of evolutionary regression, but Dacorum’s attempt to establish decorum in the countryside needs to be resisted.