Memorandum by Clara Greed, Professor of
Inclusive Urban Planning, UWE, Bristol
I am writing this in both a personal capacity
as a toileteer, and also drawing on our various research activities
and academic and professional pursuits in this field. I have always
been the one to say what everyone else thinks but dare not say,
so please take all this in the best possible spirit as I weep
for the state of our nation and its toilets.
BACKGROUND
I have undertaken a considerable amount of research
on public toilets in recent years and also on mainstreaming gender
considerations into spatial planning. Previously we undertook
research for the Nuffield Foundation the differences between user
and provider perspectives on public toilet provision, and most
recently undertook EPSRC funded research on the role of public
toilets in creating accessible city centres with colleagues at
UCL, Prof Julienne Hanson, and Jo-Anne Bichard (now at RCA Helen
Hamlyn Inclusive Design Centre) and am currently preparing work
for ESRC on the societal aspects of public toilet policy. I have
also undertaken research for the RTPI, Oxfam UK Urban Regeneration
programme, and ESRC on the importance of gender considerations
in urban planning policy, and have had several articles published
in refereed journals such as Urban Studies, and Progress in Planning
on the question of mainstreaming gender considerations into spatial
planning policy as a result of the Gender Equality Duty (and previously
at EU level the Amsterdam Treaty).
As to qualifications, I am a town planner, chartered
surveyor, fellow of the Chartered Institute of Building, and have
a PhD in the field of surveying education and practice. I am a
member of the BSI committee dealing with BS6465 Sanitary Installations,
and I am currently heading up the work on writing a new Part 4
of BS6465 specifically on public toilet provision. We previously
revised Part 1 in 2006 to conform to the requirements of gender
equality and the 2006 Equality Act. Part 1 also contains an explanatory
Annex setting out the required standards for public toilet provision
(Part 4 being a full treatment of this and other public toilet
related issues). I got into toilets because in the course of undertaking
research on the social aspects of planning and what people wanted
most in our cities, the topic of public toilets kept on coming
up, especially from women. In fact, legally, town planners and
surveyors have no statutory powers to include public toilet policy
in their plans and planning documents, nor is it required to show
public toilet locations on policy maps: which is part of the problem
of course.
RESPONSE TO
YOUR LIST
OF QUESTIONS
1. The need for public toilets in relation
to access to public spaces, the needs of older people, disabled
people, families and of course WOMEN too
Public toilets may appear to be insignificant,
small buildings within the city as a whole, but their impact is
disproportionate to their size, as they are essential to enabling
people to travel, access, and stay out away from home, without
fear of there not being a toilet available. As explained in previous
research, public toilets may be seen as the missing link in creating
SUSTAINABLE, accessible, equal cities and society. If the government
wants to get people out of their cars and back onto public transport
then public toilet provision at the local level, and in particular
in relation to transport termini, and to the main centres of human
activity including district and city centres, is essential. This
is because people cannot simply get in their cars and drive to
the nearest motorway service station: if they are on foot then
even half a mile is a considerable distance when looking for a
loo. Public toilets are an essential, and essentially, LOCAL facility
but their existence is important to the functioning of the city
as a whole.
Lack of public toilet provision affects everyone,
not just the incontinent or elderly, but some groups are better
provided for than others. Women in particular, that is the majority
of the population, 52% of the nation, and more like 55% in many
cities are particularly disadvantaged as they have less facilities
to start with in terms of geographical "spread" in terms
of places where men can relieve themselves. For example, not only
are there still areas where there are only Gents public loos and
nothing for women (look around the London area and the Welsh valleys
for example) but men have more off-street facilities in pubs,
clubs, sports and leisure facilities. When women "moan"
I have often heard men say, "well they could always use a
pub". This is not convenient for many women who would be
very wary of going into a strange pub and once in the facilities
for women are usually substandard and inaccessible too for those
with pushchairs and children, and often not open until 11am.
We have to consider the temporal as well as
spatial provision of toilets in terms of time planning policy
(an increasing issue at EU policy level). Women need toilets at
different times from men, particularly during the day time when
they are more likely to be out and about shopping, in charge of
children, going to part-time jobs etc. Great concern was expressed
by respondents during our research that greater emphasis was put
upon the evening and night-time needs of male drinkers, than was
put upon the majority of women and other people during the day
time. Creating the evening economy and the 24 hour city has not
necessarily increased the numbers of people coming into the city
in the evenings, indeed it has deterred many because of the problems
of excessive drinking and subsequent street fouling.
Providing male street urinals is not a solution
for women, and is arguably against the requirements of the Gender
Equality Duty, by which gender considerations need to be taken
into account in respect of all aspects of local authority resource
allocation, policy making, and service delivery. I was saddened
to see that some of the memoranda that you have already assumed
seemed to assume that street urinals "solved" the problem.
But thank the Lord there were also many other very very good responses
that you received that were very aware of the fact that women's
needs must be taken into account as well. One of the problems
is that if you write to a local authority the response will come
from the very male-dominated public works and sanitation departments
responsible for public toilets, who perpetuate this lack of consideration
of women's needs. If you write to community groups and women's
groups you will get a completely different picture of the situation.
There is always a difference of opinion between
toilet users as against toilet providers and their agendas are
quite different. Most toilet designers, policy-makers, engineers
are male, and most toilet user groups contain a greater proportion
of women. The ideal solution for providers might be to charge,
to restrict use and close toilets, but for users their concerns
are quite different. Be aware of this when judging feedback to
the questions asked.
Public toilet provision needs to be dealt with
as an integral part of strategic level spatial policy making,
along with, and linked to transportation planning, land use and
development policies, not as a separate issue dealt with by technical-level
officers more used to dealing with rat catching and dustbins!
We found from the gender mainstreaming research that it is very
difficult to apply the GED to such technical departments as they
have no "plan" no forward policy -making role but they
just struggle from one crisis to another, closing toilets to "solve"
toilet maintenance problems, whilst creating much vaster social
problems for bona fide would-be urinators in the process. This
is why I have always stressed the importance of integrating toilet
provision into spatial plan-making, planning law, and of course
the new planning framework. I have raised this issue when invited
by the DCLG to discuss with their senior policy makers the question
of integrating gender into the new planning system, not least
because the new White Paper on planning hardly mentioned equalities
and social issues, except for a brief mention of race and not
much more. But this may be a trap as toilets are not a "social"
issue worthy of pity they should be seen as a hard physical land
use matter just like any other type of building or development.
Otherwise we get all the response at appeal level of toilet provision
being ultra vires as it is "not a land use matter" and
so imposition of planning conditions and S.106 agreements for
toilet provision in new developments fail.
Within each toilet block itself women have less
provision than men, on average there is twice as much provision
for men as women. Even if the floorspace is the same in the Ladies
and the Gents, there is likely to be more "places to pee"
(facilities) because urinals take up far less space than cubicles
and so more users can be accommodated. This is one of the reasons
why there are always queues for the Ladies. It is not because
they are wasting time doing their make up in the loos, indeed
many of the respondents from the research said they would be wary
of staying in a public toilet any longer than they absolutely
had to because of the dangers inherent in the situation nowadays.
Not only do women have less provision but the
quality of provision is very poor. Some cubicles are so small
that the inward opening door touches the edge of the toilet pan
so it is almost impossible to get it. Standards of cleanliness,
hygiene, maintenance are also very poor, and a complete contrast
with the high standards of domestic bathrooms attained nowadays
in people's homes. Disabled toilets are often disgusting whereas
in our research we found many people want hygienic clean conditions
to carry out tasks such as cleaning their stomas, or changing
pads, and simple things like having hot running water, a shelf
to put things on, and a dry clean floor are so important. This
is all a disgrace for a modern industrial society which ranks
about 6th in the world in terms of overall wealth. Attention to
public toilet provision reduces all sorts of health complications
and thus reduces the NHS bill as explained in various of my articles,
some of which are attached to this document. Women are very wary
of sitting on dirty wet seats and so tend to "hover"
which leads to urine retention and eventual incontinence problems,
so poor ergonomic design affects health as much as dirty conditions
(see my article on toilet pathogens). But any port in a storm,
any toilet is better than no toilet!
This inequality applies not just in public on
street toilets but in all types of buildings, offices, theatres,
museums, cinemas, sports stadia, factories, shops—everything!
I am a member of the British Standards Institute BS6465 on Sanitary
Installations. We have recently updated Part 1 which sets the
ratios and levels of provision for all categories of buildings,
in the light of the requirements of the GED and equality legislation.
Most public toilets are old and historically provision is extremely
unequal for women, and generally inaccessible for many disabled
and disenabled groups too. Expecting women to use off street facilities
in pubs, bars, restaurants, places of entertainment etc, would
simply add to the queues that already exist for paying customers.
I do not think you have thought this one through enough. Also
as discussed with BSI itself we are very concerned that any Select
committee should come up with final recommendations that contradict,
and diminish the requirements of established government-approved
British Standards. Legally you are on extremely thin ice should
this come about contradicting accepted government standards as
already blessed and published and indeed agreed with ISO (the
International Standards Agency) at the global level. Not forgetting
the fact that the UK is a signatory of the UN Millennium goals
(which has big chunk on sanitation and infrastructural development
taking into account gender) and of course the Amsterdam Treaty
1997 within the EU which has taken ages to trickle down in terms
of subsidiarity to UK legislation change. I am in contact with
colleagues in New York and Brussels in relation to standards harmonisation
and it would be so sad to tell them that the UK has rescinded
on its much praised recent incorporation of gender equality into
the British Standards. Such a retrograde step. And going backwards
compared with other western nations for example about 34 American
states have now passed "potty parity" including New
York state, and so we are going the opposite way of other advanced
nations.
If you want to know the true position of women
in society today, just look at the queue for the toilet. This
is one of the last unreformed areas of public life and policy.
There is no doubt at the international level
that the West is going backwards in many respects, whereas in
contrast there has been a "restroom revolution" in the
Far East. Japan is the centre of the restroom revolution. Standards
as to geographical distribution of toilet provision are very high,
and ratios of 2:1 in favour of women are to be found in terms
of numbers of places to pee. (It is the exact opposite ratio-wise
in the UK and this has been condoned indeed reinforced by years
of discriminatory official BSI standards in the past). I would
again ask you to read through the attached documents to give you
an insight into preferred levels of provision and more enlightened
policy making. In Far East public toilet location and distribution
is shown on their town planning documents, and the frequency of
toilet provision is much higher than here, at a minimum of every
third of a mile in many locations. The calculations as to the
levels of provision, distribution, size, intensity and frequency
of demand across the day, capacity are complex mathematical matters
but at present we do not begin to meet the required levels. I
can discuss this further if required or suggest other members
of the BS6465 toilet committee such as John Griggs of the BRE
or Michelle Barkley Technical Director at Chapman Taylor Architects
who can advise on how to work out the best levels of provision.
Some areas may appear to need few public toilets as the local
population is small but it only takes an influx of tourists and
visitors to vastly swell the local demand, so basing provision
on resident numbers alone is not ideal. At present local authorities
pay for toilets in their area, but arguably everyone gets the
benefit of other areas toilets too, in the same way that we drive
on the roads or have the benefit of street lights, in other areas,
without having to pay when crossing a local authority boundary.
Numbers to be provided is strongly linked to amount of money to
fund toilets, and a national level of funding and organisation
would be ideal to make it fair for smaller authorities with large
numbers of visitors.
Whilst going on about women, let us also not
forget other key factors such as the differences in age groups.
We have approaching a third of the population in the elderly category,
and they are greatly in need of public toilets, and cannot just
wait or hang on. We heard terribly sad stories in the research
about elderly widows not being able to get to the cemetery to
tend their husband's graves because the local toilets had closed.
Also many could not get down to the post office and local shops
on the bus as it was too long to last without a loo. Many small
local district and village centres do not even have any off street
toilets in private premises let alone public toilets.
Children are encouraged to go out and spend
more time in the open air. But there are very few toilets left
in public parks or recreation grounds. Children are not allowed
into pubs under 18 on their own. Many young girls would never
dream of going into premises where lager louts hang out. One of
my pg students did her dissertation on the problems encountered
by younger children (say under 10) with older children (teenagers
especially boys) who commandeer all the play spaces, toilets,
and open space areas preventing them for using the facilities.
Reams has already been written and said about
the problems of lack of baby changing and feeding facilties in
loos, and within the built environment in general.
As for disabled toilets we have probably done
the subject to death over the years, but no-one listens. There
is a need for accessible toilets for everyone, not just those
in wheelchairs who officially count as disabled but all people
who have trouble using the regular ordinary toilets, which are
often down steps, with narrow doors and tiny cubicles. This particularly
affects women who have to use the cubicle every time, as against
men who just have to stand up at the urinal.
So to conclude this first section, public toilets
need to be provided in more locations, in greater abundance particularly
for women who need to catch up with the men in terms of provision,
and toilets need to be part of high-level urban and rural policy
making. Sustainability policy at present is set at too high a
level, and as stated public toilets are the missing link to save
people's lives being restricted as to how far they can travel
by the "bladder's leash".
In my other work on cities we have argued that
in order to create sustainable cities it is not enough to restrict
the use of the motorcar, rather we need to work out WHY people
are travelling in the first place, as dispersal of land uses and
development generates the need to travel. The ideal city would
be one of short distances, mixed land uses and many small centres,
each with its own employment areas, post offices, shops, and of
course public toilets.
We want an access not a fortress approach to
toilet design, the more people that can use them, the less problems
will occur.
2. Why provision has declined
The implicit argument that toilet provision
has declined because of vandalism, anti-social behaviour, drugs,
lack of cleanliness is false. These are all results not causes
of toilet policy neglect. As Japanese colleagues often say, you
would not put an expensive computer on the pavement and just leave
it there and expect it to be there when you came back. Likewise
it is absolutely essential to have toilet attendants, regular
cleaners, some measure of security (not just a CCTV camera with
no-one at the other end). Building a public toilet, the initial
capital investment is only about 40% of the total cost, rather
you have to allow for cleaning, maintenance, attendants, security.
Getting a toilet as part of planning gain under a S.1-6 agreement
is a dismal solution as so many developers "hit and run"
nobody is around to ensure that funding commitment to long term
cleaning, maintenance etc will continue and so the new owners
soon close the toilets (as they do with cre"ches, play area
schemes and numerous other social benefits that are not enforced
after completion).
Public toilets should be available for the use
of all citizens the general public. Frequency of use by all sorts
of people in well lit visible areas will deter anti-social elements.
We have suggested in terms of urban design principles that toilets
should not be hidden away but put in central locations as elements
of "public art" with pride of place where everyone can
see what is going on. The BTA has suggested they might be located
alongside Tourist information centres, and other public buildings
so they are not desolate and isolated. Of course all this would
require new build and we hope that that is the way ahead.
Toilet provision has declined because once local
authorities forget their public duty and sense of civic pride
and public service they can quite freely close toilets because
there is no mandatory requirement for them to keep them open.
Furthermore there is no ring fenced funding to support their existence
so they are a soft target, as soon as times get hard they close
the loos. In reality it is a matter of priorities and politics
as there is always money for all sorts of other discretionary,
non-statutory facilities and public works, many of which are of
little use or interest to the general public such as expensive
public art installations, sports facilities only providing for
young males, cultural building only providing for the elite, domes,
wasteful foreign policy, gravy trains and so forth ad infinitum.|
don't get me going. Meanwhile post offices, local swimming pools,
public toilets, road surfaces, street lighting, policing, sewerage
infrastructure and pensions are all in decline. We now have some
of the lowest levels of public investment in the EU relative to
other Northern European municipalities, and the lowest pensions
in the whole of the EU, and of course no universal system of childcare
(compare the ecoles maternelles in France), so we are no longer
a Welfare State and have not been for a very long time now. We
are no longer "splendid in our public ways" as it says
in the hymn, no civic pride or social responsibility anymore.
Overall I am very concerned that the emphasis
in the questions is on "defence" rather than on "access"
some toilet blocks are like mini-fortresses to keep the vandals
out, but the result is that bona fide users have difficulty getting
into the toilets., and creating a "crime free" building
often raises the ante and gives a false impression that the area
is more dangerous than it really is, thus putting people off even
more from frequenting the area.
3. Who should pay for public toilets?
The cost of toilets is a vexed issue for to
paraphrase Milton Friedman, there is no such thing as a free toilet.
But we have arguably all already paid through our rates and taxes
so why pay again at the point of delivery? There is no such thing
as government money, it is all our money that has been entrusted
to our rulers to use on our behalf.
To run a good and comprehensive public toilet
system costs a great deal of money, but so do all public services
and facilities so why should toilets be picked out as the poor
relation?
It has been shown that increased public toilet
provision is not a bottomless pit or a drain on resources but
rather it increases the economic turnover of an area in terms
of the business case (as shown by studies by the Association of
Town Centre managers inter alia. As the Americans say, "Bathrooms
mean business" better public toilets brings in more business,
more tourists, more customers who can stay longer and spend more.
A nation is judged by its toilets, it's the
first thing that people notice about any new country. In the past
in the age of civic pride there was no quibble about building
toilets and for that matter libraries, museums, town halls etc,
but that age has past. Admittedly in the past the Victorians created
a very unequal level of provision in public toilets but at least
they set the precedent of building loos. Nowadays we are in the
middle, we fall between two stools. We do not have the custom
of good public toilets being provided in cafes, railway stations,
etc, for free as found in some countries (Belgium is my favourite
country on this matter), but nor have we kept the tradition of
municipally run on street toilets as exist in many Far East countries
and are making a comeback in North America too. (I am often in
contact with the [North] American Restroom Association on this).
Those other Continental countries that do offer off street use
of toilets in bars and cafes are not as wonderful as is often
made out, many French cafe toilets are very grotty and one has
to have a fight with the patron to use them. In Belgium apparently
anyone has the right to knock on the door of a private house and
ask to use the toilet in an emergency (seldom done though) and
one can use the toilets in pubs and bars and cafes without having
a row, indeed some are located with a separate entrance. Plus
there is not the lager lout factor to contend with to such an
extent which puts so many normal people off using pubs, in fact
only about 10% of the population regularly go to pubs in any case.
For hundreds of reasons people are very uneasy
about using toilets that are off street in private premises and
the cost of building and maintaining proper public toilets is
more than gained back by increased prosperity, health, equality,
sustainability.
Payment systems on toilets are a huge problem
too. They usually cost more to run than the money collected. They
restrict access to anyone carrying shopping, luggage, anyone who
is pregnant, large, and of course they are a huge problem for
children and for families. Some of the turnstiles are so narrow
(Paddington station is down steps and turnstile, what a problem
for people with luggage, and it is the terminal for the Heathrow
Express too). Lots of foreigners don't know what 20p is! I went
ballistic when I found that the Brussels Midi station had installed
a payment system creating a huge queue (so unlike them). 50p to
use the loo by Westminster sends out a message that Britain has
lost the plot!
Automatic Public toilets are all pay toilets
by their very nature. They are extremely unpopular particularly
with women for a whole list of reasons (see my various articles).
Many women see them as glorified urinals because of the inadequate
space in them and the inconvenient seating arrangements! Some
are getting better but there is a huge fear factor, of being locked
in, plus uneasiness about exiting straight onto the street without
being able to see who is out there. Environmentally they are huge
users of water, and not at all ecological, and very expensive
altogether. They only serve one customer at once and are no use
for areas of high demand.
To add insult to injury the mis-directed sense
of equality is to make it legal to charge men as well as women
under the revision of the 1936 Public Health Act! Some equality,
equally bad for all! Presumably men are still free to urinate
for free at those ghastly male-only street urinals, which should
not have even been installed under the GED.
If payment is used as a way of controlling who
enters that is a joke, out filming with the BBC for one of our
toilet documentaries we observed young men simply jumping over
the turnstile system and nobody dared to stop them! At the bus
station, where many old ladies come up on the National coach buses
from the South West but they fumble to find the right change and
really struggle.
It is all a matter of priorities, as to "how
do you want to live" and "what do you want to pay for",
the government is very short-sighted in not funding public toilets.
Indeed it is a vote catcher or loser, and it is always raised
at local election level. Most people are pretty sick of the present
government's wasteful approach to using "our money"
and would welcome more attention being given to what the real,
ordinary people are saying about public toilets. Mind you the
other lot were never up to much either on the toilet front, but
there was a cross party public toilet group (what happened to
it?) which were very keen to promote these issues. People do not
want grands projets they want local interventions that meet their
most basic needs. If we are all going to be clobbered by sustainability,
environmental taxes and road charging then the least the government
can do is provide public toilets to accompany a return to public
transport use. But there is no public transport of course in many
areas outside of London so what can be done. Taxing ordinary people
does not give them the power to build railway stations or create
buses out of thin air! The public toilet issues is all part of
a wider agenda about the decline of other public services including
transport. Our society is more dangerous and the environment less
well cared for because financial cuts have removed the toilet
attendants from the loos, the park keepers from the parks, the
police from the streets, and so there is no one to keep an eye
on things anymore.
Paying to go to the loo can be a major issue
for those on low incomes, it is a form of indirect taxation for
pensioners and the incontinent who need to go more often, and
impractical and inappropriate for children, who may get a free
bus pass but not a free toilet pass. I am alarmed if the disabled
need to pay too. Many local authorities circumvented the requirements
of the DDA by simply closing their toilets rather than bringing
them up to DDA standards thus inconveniencing everyone. Clearly
there needs to be independent, ring-fenced, central government
funding on all this. The present state of local government finance,
of course, needs to be looked at, as there is not a lack of money,
rather it is a matter of how much central government is willing
to give back to central government each year.
Rolling out the reintroduction of payment systems
for public toilets will be political suicide even worse than removing
the 10p tax allowance. It will be especially resented when the
government is giving away money hand over fist to other countries
and wasting money on all sorts of other things which no-one wants,
and giving money to rich middle class people who don't need it.
My God, Kier Hardie must be turning in his grave. If you want
to give money away give it to the poor people themselves both
here and abroad not to their rulers. For example, over 40% of
urban regeneration programme money goes to pay consultants not
to those in need.
I say all this because you cannot deal with
toilets in isolation, it is all part of a wider problem in the
public's mind. For some reason the government is blind and deaf
to the toilet issue, which rings out very loud all over the country.
4. Opening Hours and Other Accessibility
and Availability Issues
You cannot provide public toilets on the cheap,
there are millions of people needing loos, including women, those
with small children, children and teenagers themselves, the elderly,
people with disabilities: not just a tiny minority.
Maybe this issue is not taken seriously because
it is not such a problem for able-bodied unencumbered men, who
never have to queue and who have the pick of the use of toilets
in pubs, clubs, walls, trees, street urinals and so forth. But
for women it is still a very different experience, and a taboo
in society. Of course all taboos are really a form of social control
and bullying. There is a need for a urination revolution (like
the sexual revolution) to "allow" people to talk freely
about toilets. This is a very western, uptight, Anglo-Saxon, British,
problem that we should grow out of.
As for opening hours people need to reassurance
that toilets are available when they need them. They need to be
open from early morning for people in the rush hour who have had
delayed journeys or stuck in traffic jams, of course all transport
termini, stations, large car parks should have toilets as a matter
of course. Closing them because of some spurious rubbish about
"terrorism, or health and safety" is just an excuse
to save money and does not serve the travelling public.
They should be open until the evening especially
for those shopping or going out in the early evening after work.
Many nurses, night workers, shift workers, library users, church
and meeting attenders want toilets on their way home and a male
street urinal with a load of threatening yobos standing around
is no help to anyone respectable male or female.
In our Nuffield research which was on the more
rural and provincial areas around Bristol and Somerset we found
that many delivery men, mobile library attendants, bus drivers,
postal workers, health carers and visitors wanted toilets in small
villages and within the more spread out suburbs, especially at
bus termini on the edge of town.
The gender balance question has already been
raised but no THE SITUATION IS STILL VERY UNEQUAL. There is a
need for a retrospective refitting of public toilets to make the
provision more equal for women. In New Zealand they took this
as a human rights issue and declared that women having to queue
for more than 3 minutes was an infringement of their human rights
(you can queue for 30 minutes in some British toilets, whether
they be theatre toilets, street toilets in bus stations and tourist
areas etc).
AT present women have less than half as much
provision as men, and so just gaining equality would be wonderful.
But in many countries now the provision is much higher at 2:1
because women take longer to use the loo for a range of sartorial,
biological and functional reasons, not because they are lazy cows
wasting everyone's time (as some respondents have suggested in
previous research). Women have more functions than men, at any
one time about a quarter of all women of childbearing age will
be menstruating, whereas pregnant women, those at menopause and
those with diabetes, and a range of other conditions will need
to use the toilet more often. Women are also more likely to be
accompanied by children, elderly relatives, luggage, shopping
and frankly headaches and stomach aches!
We are not talking about "just" the
incontinent here, but in fact about a third of men over 50 have
waterworks problems too. We found that many older men are very
unhappy with urinals and some suffer from paruresis (maybe 10%
according to American sources) that is they are piss-shy and cannot
"go" in front of other men. So it's not that wonderful
for men either but at least they have more facilities than women.
As stated we have gone through all the previous
British Standards on toilets and revised the tables mathematically
to increase provision for women, indeed to simply make it equal.
The question of shops, cafes etc being opened
up for people to use "their" toilets is a fraught issue.
As stated many of these premises has inadequate and inaccessible
facilities to start with, particularly for women, and there are
already queues for their customers let alone letting more people
in. Shopkeepers tell us that they don't like being expected to
clean up the sick and excreta when people aren't even buying anything.
The toilets in M&S for women are usually very very limited,
perhaps two cubicles if you are lucky and they are often up/down
steps. Men don't realise this as they seldom use them. Large stores
are only required to provide facilities because of the great work
that was done in 1996 by earlier campaigners on the BS6465 committee
and many other large stores have always been resentful about these
requirements.
As for who can use these off street toilets,
even if it became law, there is the embarrassment factor even
if no purchase is required, running the gauntlet of customers
and serving staff. The poorly dressed, and those that look like
they may be "trouble" and some black youth may encounter
opposition even when they only want to go to the loo. A high caste
Indian engineer colleague experienced this problem of "Oi,
you where do you think you're going?" when he only wanted
to use the loo and this really shocked and upset him as no-one
had every spoken to him like that in India.
Religious, teetotal groups, and various ethnic
minority groups are unwilling to use toilet sin pubs and other
licensed premises. Some will not go into premises that serve non
halal (or for that matter non kosher) food such as pork (that
includes bacon), or that sell beef burgers, (depending on the
religion) such as is served such as fast food places, and also
where alcohol is served, this is a big issue in the Midlands and
some London boroughs other areas of concentration. Richmond and
Greenwich are too white and too affluent to be a typical model.
This is a serious issue for many who do not want their beliefs
compromised by a secular, and unthinking government policy.
As for tourism, I have already raised this issue,
it is very important that the image of "Cool Britannia"
is maintained in respect of public toilet provision, we are already
the dirty man of Europe! Countries that used to have terrible
hole in the ground loos are getting better, whereas we are going
backwards.
Talking of hole in the ground toilets, these
can be very good if they are properly maintained, and are more
hygienic in that you do not have to sit on the seat that was sat
upon previously be a complete stranger (or on the spray of an
unthinking male). Most of the world squats rather than sits, and
not just Moslems (although they are about a billion people of
course). Good public toilets would provide the option of sit or
squat, with perhaps one cubicle adapted accordingly.
Furthermore unisex toilets, where women and
men are meant to share the same facilities is most unacceptable
to many women because of the hygiene, modesty and personal safety
factors. It is often seen as a solution by men to the queues in
the Ladies, but they do not understand the problems. From a religious,
(not just moslem) and modesty viewpoint it is unacceptable to
mix with men in such an intimate setting (even sequentially in
terms of Automatic Unisex toilets), and shared washing facilities
where women get "touched up" can be particularly problematic.
I may be ok for ladettes in a night club but not for the general
population. "Mixing" as a solution always impacts more
upon women, whether it be hospital wards, mental institutions
failing schools, public toilets, swimming pools or showers. In
the case of toilets the queues might be reduced simply because
the women do not use the unisex toilets, and may not even go out
to that area because there is no alternative. Why do women have
to make do? We all pay as much taxes and rates as the men nowadays?
Of course if you ask the men in charge of the toilets they don't
see this as a problem but ask ordinary women and you will get
a very different response.
I am very concerned about the hygiene and cleaning
regimes in public toilets, and increased use of off street pub
toilets who increase the problems by reducing official control
and pathogen control in "privatised premises" what with
C-MRSA growth and lots of other community based pathogens that
have now left the confines of the more familiar sites of hospital
toilets. I have written extensively on these issues too but this
may be alarmist to raise when we simply are fighting for more
loos at this point in time.
5. Conclusion
In the final analysis, "all human life
is there" toilets affect every aspect of our lives, and also
are relevant to all aspects of government policy-making. In summary
public toilet provision is necessary to the following factors:
Ethnic and religious equality
Toilet provision has major implications
If we really had an equal society public toilets
would be provided without question. It is not a matter just of
money it is a matter of political priorities and social awareness.
Let us not be ashamed among the nations of the
world because we are so mean that the government won't even provide
for its people's most basic needs, dignity and comfort.
DOCUMENTS ATTACHED
TO ACCOMPANYING
E-MAILS[21]
I have provided a range of attached documents,
carefully selected so as not to overwhelm you and including ones
that have been cited in other DCLG toilet and gender committee
work and by other respondents' memoranda. All you want to know
about public toilets is in my book, Inclusive Urban Design: Public
Toilets published by the Architectural Press, 2003, Elsevier,
Oxford. I would also recommend The Accessible Toilet Resource
which is the report of the recent EPSRC research with guidance
and "toolkits" on accessible toilet design for all.
2003, Greed, C, Inclusive Urban Design: Public
Toilets (publishers Elsevier,Oxford, Architectural Press.
2007, Hanson, J, Bichard, J and Greed, C (2007)
The Accessible Toilet Resource Manual, London: University College
London. Also available on CD.
May 2002 User and Provider Perspectives on Public
Toilet Provision, Report of the Nuffield Foundation funded research
on public toilet provision, only available as a report, and sent
to the committee. But not available as attached document.
British Standards:
BS6465 Sanitary Installation: Part 1: Code of
Practice for the Design and Provision of Sanitary Facilities,
British Standards Institute (also available Parts 2 and 3 (more
technical) and Part 4 in production specifically on standards
of provision for public toilets.
Frequently mentioned Conference papers by C.
Greed
Public toilets: the need to provide compulsory
provision
The need to provide a strategic spatial planning
approach to public toilet provision in Britain
Taking Stock: An overview of public toilet provision
and standards
What would a non-sexist restroom be like? NYU
Public Toilets Conference, New York
(see Bathroom Programme, New York University
conference.)
Relevant Journal Articles by C.Greed
(this is more academic material).
2005, "Overcoming the factors inhibiting
the mainstreaming of gender into spatial planing policy in the
United Kingdom" Urban Studies Vol.42, No.4, p1-31.
2006, "Institutional and conceptual barriers
to the adoption of gender mainstreaming within spatial planning
departments in England" Planning Theory and Practice, Vol
7, No.2.pp 127-140.
2006, "The role of the public toilet: pathogen
transmitter or health facilitator" in Building Services Engineering
Research and Technology Journal (BSERT)", Vol.27, No.2, pp
127-140, Special issue, on "Research addressing cross-contamination
and infection spread through building drainage and sanitation
provision"
2007, Bichard, J, Hanson, J, and Greed, C, "Please
wash your hands", Senses and Society, Vol.2, No.3 pp 385-390
2007, "A Place for Everyone?" Oxfam,
a Regender Briefing paper (short item).
Toilet Teaching notes
Restroom Design Course, World Toilet Organisation,
Singapore Summer School
Macro level: Planning for a City-Wide Toilet
Hierarchy
Meso level: District level, toilet location
issues
Micro level: Toilet block design considerations
(these are modules notes that contain the main
public toilet principles for information)
21 Not printed. Back
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