THE back page of The Press of November 8 shows a beaming William Derby, CEO and clerk of the course, explaining the proposed £5 million-plus plan to improve the facilities at York racecourse.

The huge bulk of these improvements involve the horses, owners and trainers, jockeys etc. This is very admirable and, as a keen race-goer, I welcome it.

But go into the course enclosure on a busy race day and you may eventually have to visit the gents’ toilets.

Once you have joined the queue of about 12-15 men waiting to go in, you wait patiently and lo and behold, eventually you reach the inside of what is a tiny Victorian building with fewer facilities than a pigsty.

And it is worse than a pigsty, with an unimaginable filthy area too bad to describe in this newspaper.

These toilets have been like this since I first went in 1972. So much for bringing York Racecourse into the 21st century.

Phil Wadsworth, Haroldsway, Stamford Bridge.