The Loo of the Year Award is an award given by an independent association to public facilities in the United Kingdom

United Kingdom

The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...

 that meet a number of requirements.

The Award's objective is to promote the highest possible standards in public toilets.

The Award is run independently and is promoted by the British Toilet Association. It also receives corporate sponsorship from a number of companies working in the field—Armitage Shanks

Armitage Shanks

Armitage Shanks is a British manufacturer of bathroom fixtures and plumbing supplies.In 2004 Armitage Shanks had eight factories in the UK, the largest in Armitage, Staffordshire. Armitage Shanks is one of the sponsors of the Loo of the Year Awards....

, Albany Washroom Services, SCA Hygiene Products

Svenska Cellulosa Aktiebolaget

Svenska Cellulosa Aktiebolaget is a Swedish consumer goods company and pulp and paper manufacturer with headquarters in Stockholm. It has approximately 45,000 employees and a turnover of approximately SEK 107 billion...

, Technical Concepts and the British Cleaning Council—along with the national tourism

Tourism

Tourism is travel for recreational, leisure or business purposes. The World Tourism Organization defines tourists as people "traveling to and staying in places outside their usual environment for not more than one consecutive year for leisure, business and other purposes".Tourism has become a...

 boards of England

England

England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...

, Scotland

Scotland

Scotland is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. Occupying the northern third of the island of Great Britain, it shares a border with England to the south and is bounded by the North Sea to the east, the Atlantic Ocean to the north and west, and the North Channel and Irish Sea to the...

, Wales

Wales

Wales is a country that is part of the United Kingdom and the island of Great Britain, bordered by England to its east and the Atlantic Ocean and Irish Sea to its west. It has a population of three million, and a total area of 20,779 km²...

 and Northern Ireland

Northern Ireland

Northern Ireland is one of the four countries of the United Kingdom. Situated in the north-east of the island of Ireland, it shares a border with the Republic of Ireland to the south and west...

.

History

First introduced in 1987, the Loo of the Year Awards competition has run annually, except for 1993.

Eligibility criteria

Any type of public facility (what the British Toilet Association calls an 'away from home' toilet) can be nominated for consideration. There are thirty-six different award categories in all. Eligible facilities can be located in England, Scotland, Wales or Northern Ireland.

Anyone can submit a nomination—staff, customers, visitors, managers, owners or contractors—but owners or managers must authorize entries.

Judging criteria

After an unannounced inspection from an authorized Loo of the Year Awards Inspector, nominees are graded on a scale from one to five stars. Grades are awarded based on a number of criteria, and are judged on both male and female facilities, as well as any baby changing and accessible facilities provided. The criteria include:

• Signage
  Signage
  Signage is any kind of visual graphics created to display information to a particular audience. This is typically manifested in the form of wayfinding information in places such as streets or inside/outside of buildings.-History:...
  
   and communication
  Communication
  Communication is the activity of conveying meaningful information. Communication requires a sender, a message, and an intended recipient, although the receiver need not be present or aware of the sender's intent to communicate at the time of communication; thus communication can occur across vast...
  
  :
  • Directional signage (if applicable)
  • External building signage (if applicable)
• Internal customer communication signage
• Decor and maintenance
  Maintenance, Repair and Operations
  Maintenance, repair, and operations or maintenance, repair, and overhaul involves fixing any sort of mechanical or electrical device should it become out of order or broken...
  
  :
  • State of repair, both inside and outside (if applicable)
• Fixtures and fittings provision:
  • Sanitary fittings, taps
    Tap (valve)
    A tap is a valve controlling release of liquids or gas. In the British Isles and most of the Commonwealth, the word is used for any everyday type of valve, particularly the fittings that control water supply to bathtubs and sinks. In the U.S., the term "tap" is more often used for beer taps,...
    
    , locks
    Lock (device)
    A lock is a mechanical or electronic fastening device that is released by a physical object or secret information , or combination of more than one of these....
    
    , hooks, etc.
• Cleanliness
  Cleanliness
  Cleanliness is both the abstract state of being clean and free from dirt, and the process of achieving and maintaining that state.Cleanliness may be endowed with a moral quality, as indicated by the aphorism "cleanliness is next to godliness," and may be regarded as contributing to other ideals...
  
  :
  • Walls and ceilings
  • Floor areas
  • Fixtures and fittings (basins, bowls, seats, taps, etc.)
• Hygiene
  Hygiene
  Hygiene refers to the set of practices perceived by a community to be associated with the preservation of health and healthy living. While in modern medical sciences there is a set of standards of hygiene recommended for different situations, what is considered hygienic or not can vary between...
  
   equipment:
  • Hand washing
    Hand washing
    Hand washing for hand hygiene is the act of cleaning the hands with or without the use of water or another liquid, or with the use of soap, for the purpose of removing soil, dirt, and/or microorganisms....
    
    
  • Hand drying
  • Toilet tissue
  • Sanitary product disposal
• Air quality:
  • Ventilation
    Ventilation (architecture)
    Ventilating is the process of "changing" or replacing air in any space to provide high indoor air quality...
    
    , drainage
    Drainage
    Drainage is the natural or artificial removal of surface and sub-surface water from an area. Many agricultural soils need drainage to improve production or to manage water supplies.-Early history:...
    
     smells, etc.
• Extras:
  • Added-value enhancement
  • Vending, flowers etc.
• Security
  Security
  Security is the degree of protection against danger, damage, loss, and crime. Security as a form of protection are structures and processes that provide or improve security as a condition. The Institute for Security and Open Methodologies in the OSSTMM 3 defines security as "a form of protection...
  
  :
  • Lighting
    Lighting
    Lighting or illumination is the deliberate application of light to achieve some practical or aesthetic effect. Lighting includes the use of both artificial light sources such as lamps and light fixtures, as well as natural illumination by capturing daylight...
    
    , entrances, external areas (if applicable)
• Accessible facilities
  Accessibility
  Accessibility is a general term used to describe the degree to which a product, device, service, or environment is available to as many people as possible. Accessibility can be viewed as the "ability to access" and benefit from some system or entity...
  
  :
  • Proper provision for both sexes or a unisex facility
• Changing facilities:
  • Proper provision for both sexes or a unisex facility
• Overall management and customer care

National Awards

A nominee receiving a five- or possibly a four-star grading will be considered for one of the following major National Awards in each of England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland:

• National Category Winners (up to thirty-six categories in each country)
• National Accessible Toilet Winner
• National (Baby) Changing Facilities Winner
• Public Toilet Entries - National Winner
• Individual Category Entries - National Winner

Individual UK Loo of the Year Trophy

The winner of this award is selected from one of the eight national winners in the Public Toilet Entries and the Individual Category Entries categories above.

UK Corporate Provider Trophy

The winner of this award is selected from organizations or authorities entering ten or more different locations and winning five or more five-star awards.

Champions' League – Standards of Excellence Awards

This award is presented to organizations or local authorities winning five or more five-star awards and who, in the inspectors' opinion, are maintaining a consistently high standard of management in all their Loo of the Year Awards entries.

Local Authority Premier League

Membership in the League is granted to the top twenty local authority public toilet providers.

Attendant of the Year Awards

These people awards are open to all full-time attendants, as well as employed cleaning staff and retained cleaning contractors. Separate Attendant of the Year Award Certificates are awarded in England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland with Commended and National Winners for each country.

In addition, the overall UK winner (either an individual, in-house cleaning team or external contractor) is awarded the Cannon Hygiene UK Attendant Of The Year Trophy.