REGULAR
WHERE’S THE LOO?
As the British Cleaning Council starts to focus its attentions on its business plans for the next three years, Lee Baker, PR and Media Manager for the BCC, looks at one issue the council feels particularly strongly about, the disappearance of our public toilets.
The BCC is currently developing its business plan for the next three years, and part of the process is discussing and debating, amongst ourselves, some of the issues that concern us and are relevant to our industry.
It’s very informal at this stage, although notes are being taken, and at some point in the future the Council will vote on whether to pursue one of these issues further, putting in resources if necessary.
At our recent Council meeting in Manchester, one topic in particular stood out for members and that was the scandal of our disappearing public toilets.
It’s something that seems to unite most of the public, even politicians, yet public loos continue to disappear at a rate of knots.
Raymond Martin, from the British Toilet Association (BTA), has repeatedly warned that more than half of Britain’s toilets have closed in the last decade. He has rightly earned plaudits for the innovative UK Toilet Map app, but if the current trend continues it will be a map bereft of toilets!
Town Halls are not legally obliged to provide public conveniences, and as such they’re often one of the first things to be cut from the budget. To put matters beyond satire, some councils, at the same time as closing
24 | Tomorrow’s Cleaning May 2016
public facilities, are introducing ‘wee fees’ which mean people can be fined up to £100 if they are caught urinating on the street.
But it’s not just urban areas that are losing loos; away from motorways, roadside provision is falling at an even greater rate, leaving people who travel on long journeys with literally nowhere to go.
“We all understand
governments are overrun with pressing issues they must deal with, but what can be more important
than a basic human right for toilet provision?”
This fight is being taken up by campaigner, Gillian Kemp, who wants better toilet provision for truckers. She has set up a campaign to improve the health and wellbeing of lorry drivers in the UK (Truckers Toilets UK) with its core aim to get more loos for drivers.
She says toilet access for lorry drivers, taxi drivers and also mobile workers, is now becoming a real problem. Some companies are refusing access to
their toilets for these types of workers; reneging on their duty of care. While the Road Haulage Association has branded firms that accept deliveries but refuse them access to facilities as appalling and hypocritical.
It’s leading to a big increase in human waste dumped at the roadside and in lay-bys, as drivers and other mobile workers have little choice when nature calls. Not only is it undignified for the individuals who are forced to do this, but there are huge health and safety concerns when access to toilets is restricted.
There’s a domino effect here, with one problem leading onto the next, and no one in authority, as yet, has been able to satisfactorily resolve it.
That is why the campaigns of both Raymond Martin and Gillian Kemp are so important. We all understand governments are overrun with pressing issues they must deal with, but what can be more important than a basic human right for toilet provision?
It’s something BCC members also feel very strongly about and we will continue to offer our full backing to stop the closure of public loos, and to get better roadside provision for our truckers.
www.britishcleaningcouncil.org
twitter.com/TomoCleaning
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