Because for the past 20 years, designs have fallen over well before now.

At various, they have not proven popular with the CWA or the businesses in McNamara Street and gone back to the drawing board, even after a complying development application had been approved.

Or, stakeholder groups have been satisfied with a solution and the project has fallen over at the tender stage because costs were pushed well beyond what was reasonable for a toilet block.

Indeed, the tender process in recent times has often ended up being discussed confidentially.

Councillor Glenn Taylor, who has had to weather various storms to get the project through, told the Central Western Daily several times over the years he would believe it when he saw it built.

We see his point.

With the project's luck so far, it's not a stretch to wonder if a green and golden bell frog might yet be discovered on the site, or some other unlikely hurdle, and halt progress.

Given no other iteration of the toilet has reached this stage, maybe it's a sign that this time it will happen.

Yet the public relations cost of the project has been astronomical.

Unpopular decisions or setbacks on other council projects have often brought comparisons to the toilets on social media.

Without doubt, the parameters for the project were not straightforward - located in a central park with heritage significance and a history of antisocial behaviour in previous toilet facilities, decisions on location and design had to add up.

However, some hold-ups came back to whether toilets would be unisex or whether urinals would be provided.

Few other projects would receive this level of debate or scrutiny - Orange Regional Museum, for example, was designed without adequate storage, yet it went ahead years ago with the future gallery expansion tipped to fill this need.

If the multipurpose sporting precinct takes 20 years to finalise, state government funding will be long gone.

Democracy is all well and good when it comes to shaping public facilities, but let us hope that the process for future projects does not follow this model.