Q. My husband and I are at loggerheads. One of the buildings he owns has become vacant and he has planning consent for change of use to a pub. On the one hand we very much need the money. On the other I dread the drunkenness and yobbery it would bring. Can you rule, Mary?
— Name withheld, Worcestershire
A. He could achieve the same result — filling your coffers — by turning this empty building into toilets. Anyone who doubts that toilets can be an attraction in their own right need only visit Stonehenge, where hordes pass through the toilets each day without even casting a glance at the world heritage site. Have your own toilets signed from the motorway as ‘24-hour supertoilets’; perhaps a starter block where punters pay 30p a time; a deluxe block with assistants and fluffy white towels; and charge even more for use of a retro-block with vintage loos and Izal or Bronco hard paper to appeal to pensioners.
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