Toilet Map is the latest venture from the London based blogger, IanVisits.

I like to travel around this fine city quite a bit, and have too often got off a train or bus in some part of town that I am not familiar with to visit an interesting place, and found myself in various states of desperation to use a local toilet.

Where cafés exist, the purchase of a coffee has often been the key to accessing the facilities, but with the downside that the coffee itself will cause further need of Public Conveniences in an hour or so.

Thus was Toilet Map born - a website that works on mobile phones and lists local toilets based on your location.

The data will be updated regularly, based on personal experience and submissions from users by the side menu options - and may grow beyond the M25 if it proves as popular as I hope it will be.

What's Special about Toilet Map?

There have been a couple of previous attempts to create lists of public toilets, but too often seemed to just take information from council websites and list that, or listed only small fraction of the available toilets. Sadly, most councils simply list street maps or venues, but without specifying where on the street the toilet is.

Some streets can be very long, so Toilet Map has only ever added a toilet the map once I have been able to physically locate the toilet and reference it.

Opening hours are more problematic, and I have erred on the side of caution. The last thing someone wants is to turn up to a loo that should be open, only to find it closed 10 minutes ago! Where opening hours are for various reasons unknown, efforts are being made to try and find out what they are.

In the long term, expanding the map outside the M25 - and also applying improvements to the mobile apps so that live updates and corrections are possible.

Follow @toilet_map on Twitter, or over at Facebook for updates.

Email me with comments at ianm@toiletmap.co.uk