I’m going on a bit of a history trip, as well as going on about the public toilet subject. It’s something we all have to use, unless you know something I don’t! There was an article in hubby’s paper about toilets and the lack of them, so me being me I couldn’t resist looking at it.
The First Public Toilets
Did you know that the first British toilets for public use were introduced in 1851 at the Great Exhibition in Hyde Park, London? I didn’t, so now you do too. There were more than 800,000 visitors to that event. They were happy to pay one old penny to use the toilets as they had clean towels, toilet seats and were just generally kept clean.
That was how we got the phrase ‘I’m going to spend a penny’ which we all know so well. Of course, being me again, it did make me wonder how on earth people managed without public toilets in those days, especially the ladies with their long dresses and reams of underskirts! Also, where did they spend a penny before 1851 I wonder? The image of all those people squatting somewhere makes my mind boggle!
Cuts to Public Toilets
Anyway, onwards and upwards. Did you know that £26,000,000 has been cut from budgets in the last 5 years, forcing hundreds of public toilets to close? Some parts of the country have none and others 90%, less than they did. It makes me wonder, I don’t know about you.
The article goes on to say that in Cornwall the number of public toilets has dropped from 247 in 2011 to just 14 last year. In Wiltshire they now have just 22. Gosh, I’m glad I don’t live there. It seems a bid odd to me that there are only 14 public toilets in Cornwall, that takes some believing, I wonder if they’ve got their numbers wrong!
And cuts to cleaning them
Did you also know that budget cuts for cleaning staff and maintenance have been cut by 53% since 2013. Also that the toilets which are left that were once cleaned several times a day are now often cleaned every other day in some towns. Imagine that if you will. The state that public toilets get in anyway is a mystery to me. There’s often toilet paper thrown on the floor, toilets not flushed properly and left in a yucky state, it’s just not necessary. I don’t know about you, but I don’t have a burning desire to start throwing toilet paper all over the floor, so why do people do it?!
Anyway, there is a pressure group who rightly say that that health, hygiene and well being are important issues for everyone, but especially for groups of people who have special needs. What about the poor things who have bowel problems such as IBS, colitis and all the other reams of things that some people suffer from. Also the people with bladder problems that just can’t find a toilet when they are out. Imagine how you would feel if you couldn’t ‘go’. How embarrassing that would be in public.
Missing out on Life
Then there are people with dementia, autism, muscular dystrophy but to name a few conditions, who need toilets urgently. Can you imagine the panic they must feel when public toilets are closing down at a rate of knots. As a result of all this stress, some people are afraid to leave their house in case they ‘have to go’. How awful for them is that. Through no fault of their own they are stuck at home and missing out on life just because someone decided that they would make cuts on toilets. Barmy I call it.
Ideas to Make Toilets Available
One idea put forward by the pressure group, which I thought was a good one, is to give a reduction in rates to businesses who allow the public to use their toilets. I appreciate that from a businesses point of view that they don’t want hordes of people coming in and using their facilities and what a lot of places have notices saying ‘customers only’. So if shops and businesses were given some rate relief, surely it would change their mind? That’s if the reduction were big enough of course!
The Local Government Association said that councils are doing everything they can to keep public toilets open, but if that is the case, why are so many being closed? The trouble is that they are faced with an £8 billion funding gap by 2025 and councils have had to make tough choices about how to manage dwindling resources. I just wish that common sense would prevail and they would all realise that everyone uses a toilet. Do the people making the cuts have special bladders and bowels that we don’t know about?
I just want to finish by saying that it would be nice if the sarcastic people who made fun of me on the last blog I wrote about toilets would stop and think when they are taking ‘the p..s out of me, pardon the pun. It’s a serious subject, and one day they might also be in the unfortunate position that a lot of people can find themselves in, through no fault of their own.
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