Colin D Gordon

If you see someone rushing down the street, they could be late for work or a date. Or chasing a mugger. More likely, however, they are urgently looking for somewhere to ‘answer the call of nature’. The British discreetly call it ‘spending a penny’, though at London’s Waterloo Station it now costs 20p and in Westminster Underground Station 50p. According to the British Toilet Association (BTA),  the UK’s public conveniences (‘architectural gems of the Victorian era’) were once ‘the envy of the world’. Not any more. In the past 10 years the number just in England & Wales has been halved to around 5,000. Many of those still open are ,for a variety of reasons, virtually unusable. A London Assembly survey has reported that there has been a reduction in the capital of  40% since 2001. That leaves only around 400 for London’s (official) population of 7.5million: one for every 18,000 people. This doesn’t include commuters and tourist groups. The situation in Islington is reputedly even worse: one per 58,000 inhabitants.  On the Underground system, 88 out of 255 stations currently have public toilets.

There is growing concern about the 500,000 extra visitors expected for the 2012 Olympics. Beijing  has  already spent over £27.4million on providing 4,700 public toilets (one every 500 metres) for 2008.  Restaurants, shops and hotels will also be required to make their toilets available free of charge to non-customers.  The cost of London doing likewise will be on top of the controversial £12 billion (and rising) ‘Olympics Bill’.  Local authorities across then UK say they can no longer afford to maintain such facilities and anyway they have no legal obligation to do so.

Westminster Council,  however ,has managed to find £2.5 million for improvements. They didn’t have much choice. Uric acid from people waiting for night buses in Trafalgar Square had begun to erode the stone walls of the National Gallery. They’ve even installed two telescopic urinals that rise out of the pavement on Friday and Saturday nights. Their latest innovation is a ‘SatLav’ service.  Mobile phone users can (for 25p) text the word ‘toilet’ then await a response (which at the moment might take quite a while). The system identifies their proximity to the nearest facility and provides the address.  Richmond-on-Thames Council has meanwhile set up a ‘Community Toilet Scheme’ whereby they pay £600 p.a. to supermarkets, pubs, restaurants and other local businesses which allow the public to use their toilets even if they don’t intend to make a purchase. A special sign is displayed outside the participants’ premises. If this catches on in the rest of the country it will mean an end to sneaking uncomfortably into a pub or restaurant (hopefully unnoticed), being caught by the barman and so having to buy a drink you don’t really want.

This situation, of course, is not unique to the UK.  It is estimated that the average person around the world uses a  toilet about 2,500 times a year. In Paris, they’ve decided to scrap the current public lavatory charge of  40 centimes (27p) to eliminate the problem of affordability or finding the correct change. However, anyone using the street instead will be fined 183 euros (£125) or 450 euros (£308) for repeat offenders.  The World Toilet Association (WT0) is based in Singapore, represents 44 countries (including the American Restroom Association) and deals particularly with sanitation issues.  It holds annual ‘summits’ (New Delhi, India, in 2007) and has declared November 19th ‘ World Toilet Day’.  The BTA (enquiries@britloos.co.uk) runs a ‘Loo Of The Year Award’ and no doubt would be happy to receive recommendations.

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