"I'm a Yorkshireman who moved to this part of Wales in 1993. A few years back, I was put on a course of diuretics by my doctor which meant that on the long journeys to Yorkshire and back, I needed to find a public toilet at regular intervals. This wasn't a problem on the Welsh part of the journey, where conveniences are frequent and well signposted, but once the route took me through England, it became more difficult. No villages seemed to have public toilet facilities, unlike Ceredigion where even a small place like Llanddewi Brefi has two.

This led me to do a little research which showed that provision in other parts of the county was also very good. Aberystwyth, for example, is fantastic compared to other towns with ten public toilets. Ceredigion seemed to be quite a special case. I decided then to compare the county with other areas, particularly from across the border.

First of all, I looked at large cities like London, Birmingham and Manchester. Speaking to councils, it became apparent they often had a policy of restricting access or closing down public toilets as they attracted "deviant elements", including vandalism and drug abuse. Many of these conveniences are in prime city centre locations and as the council close them down, a lot have been re-opened as businesses - beauty shops, barbers and even a bar!

Rather than look at large cities, I decided to compare Ceredigion with other similar, rural communities. I looked at a community called Hambleton in Yorkshire which is comparable in size to Ceredigion, with towns of a similar population and similar growth patterns in the past.

My research showed that whereas Ceredigion has one public toilet per 1,000 of the population, Hambleton has one for every 10,000. So Ceredigion has ten times more provision than a similar sized community like Hambleton. This raises the question - why?

We can look at censuses for information on the provision of amenities - i.e. indoor bathroom and toilets in private houses. I thought that perhaps the development of amenities was slower in Ceredigion but that wasn't always the case. I like to think it's part of the 'godliness / cleanliness' ethos of Ceredigion. A symbol of a sense of Ceredigion's community spirit.

I have also considered that the provision of public toilets might reflect the needs of the itinerant community who used to travel from farm to farm doing seasonal work, such as the drovers for example.

Another point is that the public toilets of Ceredigion are on the whole very well looked after. Several have won awards and rather than closing them down, the council is either refurbishing or opening more. This seems to go against what other councils in England are doing.

Many public toilets are important period buildings in their own right. I'd like to look closer at the architecture and the use of space within public toilets. Public toilets are also very telling about modern society. The provision of disabled access and baby changing facilities says a lot, for example, about contemporary social attitudes and tensions.

What I'm trying to say in my paper is that we've got something in our community which we should pay attention to - it shows a part of Ceredigion society which should be celebrated, it is a symbol of community and a special feature of the county that elsewhere in the UK has been neglected and disregarded.

In big towns, where there is more movement of people, there is less of a community spirit. People have left Ceredigion and incomers have settled here but even so, the community values are more stable here.

I think most people see public toilets as a quirky - almost irrelevant - subject to study, with perhaps no academic merit. Although this isn't my main area of study, rather more of a sideline, I do think it is a worthwhile project."

By Quentin Drew from the University of Wales Lampeter