The City of Antwerp is to make its public toilets easier to find, improve their maintenance and work more closely with cafés and restaurants, but the city says it still has no budget to significantly expand its network of public toilets.
The plans come after months of criticism over the shortage of publicly accessible toilets in the city. Antwerp currently has around 100 public toilets when facilities across all districts are counted, although the exact number depends on which facilities are included.
The shortage has become particularly visible in busy parts of the city, where visitors can struggle to find a toilet when shops and businesses refuse access. The issue also affects residents who are less able to go without easy access to sanitary facilities, including children, older people and people with disabilities.
In April, opposition parties Groen and CD&V again raised the issue in the Antwerp city council. Groen councillor Ilse Van Dienderen said the city was failing to address a long-standing problem. “In the Stadspark, people are defecating in all the flowerbeds,” she said, pointing to the consequences of the lack of facilities.
Easier to find
Under the new Toilet Plan, alderman for Public Domain Ken Casier (N-VA) says the city will improve signage directing people to public toilets.
“We’re going to improve signage to these toilets. We’re also going to improve online information,” Casier said.
The information will be available through the city’s own website, as well as platforms such as Hoge Nood and Google Maps. Toilets located in museums and mobile toilet units will also be included, so that people can find a wider range of facilities through the same information network.
The city also wants to cooperate more closely with the hospitality sector. Antwerp has a large number of cafés, bars and restaurants, and Casier says some business owners are prepared to allow people who need a toilet to use their facilities.
“There is a large offering of bars and restaurants in Antwerp. There are quite a few entrepreneurs willing to welcome people who need to go to the toilet,” he said.
However, the city is not currently planning to introduce a system of financial compensation for businesses that open their toilets to the public.
No money for more toilets
The most significant limitation of the new plan is that it will not substantially increase the number of toilets.
“We must be honest: there’s no budget for extra public toilets,” Casier said. “But when renewing and redesigning public domain – squares, streets – we’ll check if we can place some extra toilets.”
That is essentially the same position the city took in April, when Casier told a municipal committee that funding had been provided to maintain the existing toilets, but not to build additional ones.
At the time, there were 76 regular public toilets and 24 accessible toilets, according to the city. De Morgen, reporting in March, counted 77 indoor toilets and 21 urinals at 23 locations, with facilities operated by external providers bringing the broader total to more than 120. The differing figures reflect the fact that not all facilities are operated or counted in the same way.
The city has also pointed to the cost of maintaining additional mobile facilities. A unit containing two urinals and two enclosed wheelchair-accessible toilets costs around €92,000 a year to keep open, including daily cleaning, supplies and technical maintenance.
A problem that has persisted for years
The latest plan follows earlier attempts to tackle the shortage. In 2023, Antwerp launched a pilot project at three locations. Additional investment was made in the toilets at Library Permeke, Café Capital received funding to allow people to use its toilets in the Stadspark, and a mobile toilet unit was installed at the Droogdokkenpark.
The pilots produced some improvements, but they have not provided a permanent solution. Café Capital has temporarily closed, while the mobile facilities at the Scheldt are only available during part of the year. Some mobile toilets were also vandalised and temporarily closed.
The problem was highlighted in detail by De Morgen in March, which reported that Antwerp’s roughly 100 public toilets were not always free or open, while some facilities were poorly maintained. The newspaper also highlighted the disproportionate impact on women, children, older people, people with disabilities and people in vulnerable socio-economic situations.
The lack of toilets can effectively determine where people are able to spend time in the city. Antwerp resident Danny Verstraeten, who uses a wheelchair, told De Morgen that he has to stay around the Antwerp-Central Railway Station when he goes into the city because that is one of the few areas where he can reliably find accessible sanitary facilities.
Maintenance as well as availability
The new plan does, however, introduce one practical change beyond signage and information: an additional mobile cleaning team will be deployed to public toilets.
The aim is to improve hygiene and respond more quickly when facilities become dirty or require attention.
That addresses another problem highlighted in earlier reporting. Vandalism and poor maintenance have repeatedly been cited as reasons why expanding the network is expensive and difficult. In the summer of 2025, several mobile toilets at the Scheldt were closed for weeks after being heavily vandalised.
The situation also shows that simply adding facilities does not automatically guarantee a successful public toilet network. De Morgen reported that toilets at the popular Het Paleis site had required private security during the Saturday market because of repeated vandalism and disorder.
More toilets when streets are redesigned
For now, Antwerp’s strategy is therefore largely to get more use out of the toilets it already has: make them easier to locate, make information about them more widely available, improve cleaning and encourage businesses to help fill the gaps.
New public toilets could still appear when streets and squares are redesigned, but there is no dedicated budget to guarantee them.
The approach means the city is unlikely to eliminate the shortage during the current term of office. Van Dienderen has previously called for Antwerp to have as many public toilets as Velo bicycle-sharing stations – around 250 – but acknowledged that this target would not be reached under the current policy.
The new plan should make it easier for people to find a toilet when they need one. It does not, however, fundamentally change the number of toilets available across Antwerp.
When you reach a certain age that is very useful information lol !!!
😆