YORK'S public toilets are set for a £663,000 upgrade, which city leaders will improve facilities and save money in the long-term.

Ruling councillors will be asked next week to outsource the service through a 15-year contract covering the refurbishment and maintenance of facilities. Toilets will be open 24-hours-a-day under the new arrangement but people will have to pay 40p a time to use them.

The contract will cover the toilets in Acomb Front Street, Exhibition Square, Coppergate, Tanner Row and the car parks on Nunnery Lane and St George’s Field. 

There will also be improvements to the Silver Street facilities, which already includes a Changing Place disabled facility, and an additional Changing Place will be built as part of the refurbishment at Union Terrace car park toilets. The toilets in St Sampson's Square will close.

A council spokeswoman said the 2013/14 council budget agreed that to realise savings, they should consider using external providers and introducing charges. The council says the new arrangement will save them £75,000 a year.

The move has been welcomed tonight by the British Toilet Association, which campaigns for improvements to public toilets.

Director Raymond Martin said: "It's fantastic York is doing this. They understand that toilets keep money in an area because if you get rid of them, people will not come to an area or they will leave it to find a toilet somewhere else. And when they do leave, they take their money with them."

He said a 40p charge was comparable with the penny charge in Victorian times and was fair, as councils received no Government funding to maintain toilets. He said: "The alternative is no public toilets at all, which would create major problems for many social groups such as children, the elderly or pregnant women."

The council said a tendering exercise was carried out, inviting bids from companies to refurbish, service and maintain the toilets, reducing council expenditure, generating income through advertising, keeping as many facilities as open and as clean as possible and charging for use, like many other councils do.

The spokeswoman said a bid meeting that criteria had been received and if the cabinet approves it next week, the refurbishment will be complete by next May 2014.

All toilets will have unisex cubicles and baby-changing facilities. The council said accessibility will be greatly improved with all sites having alarm cords for disabled users connected to a 24-hour helpline, and there will be 24-hour access to all toilets.

Disabled users will still be able to use the toilets free with RADAR keys.

The council said the 40p charge for other users would help offset the cost of the refurbishment and automatic cleaning after each use, as well as regular visits by cleaners.

Cllr David Levene, cabinet member for environmental services, said the project was a significant refurbishment that would create more accessible facilities and make necessary savings.