Examination of Witnesses (Questions 1-19)
MS PAMELA
HOLMES, MR
MARTIN JACKAMAN
AND MR
ALAN SHRANK
2 JUNE 2008
Q1 Chair: Can I welcome you. This is
the first oral evidence session of our short inquiry on public
toilets. It would be very helpful if you could go along from my
right and say who you are and which organisation you represent.
Mr Shrank: My name is Alan Shrank
and I am Chairman of the National Organisation of Residents' Associations.
Would you like me to say a few words about that?
Q2 Chair: No, that is fine. We have got
the notes about what the organisations are.
Mr Jackaman: I am Martin Jackaman
and I am representing the national Changing Places Consortium.
Ms Holmes: I am Pamela Holmes
from Help the Aged.
Q3 Chair: Excellent. If I can start
the questioning. Because we have not got a huge amount of time,
each of you should not feel obliged to answer every question and,
of course, we have got your written memoranda, so we have got
all the information and responses you have given us there and
we do not necessarily need you to repeat those. I want to ask
you to respond firstly as to why local authorities seem to have
given up on providing public toilets, whether you think local
authorities should have an obligation to provide them and whether
the Government should be doing anything more assertive.
Ms Holmes: I think the reasons
why local authorities have not continued to support the provision
of local public toilets are various and some of these are detailed
in the recent strategic guide which describes a situation which
has evolved over the last few years. As far as older people are
concerned, it is absolutely devastating. We have research, and
it is in the submission we made, about the impact on isolation,
about the impact on older people's health—physical, social
and mental—when they are unable to go out of the house because
they are fearful of not finding a public toilet. This is whether
they have got incontinence—which is a common condition as
you get older, not inevitable but common—or whether they
simply are going out shopping or whatever it might be, the fact
that they cannot depend on there being public toilets absolutely
increases the amount of isolation. We have got recent figures
on one in 10 older people saying that they often or frequently
are lonely. As far as local authorities having a duty, we would
very much support that call for local authorities to see it as
part of their duty to provide local public toilets and to take
the menu of options which are available and examples of best practice
which exist. We would certainly support that call.
Mr Jackaman: As far as the Changing
Places Consortium goes, we would say the disability equality duty
places a responsibility on local authorities to do more. What
we have got with the Changing Places Consortium, which focuses
on the needs of people with profound disabilities as you know,
is local authorities being proactive. Some local authorities have
been very active, such as Nottingham and Bradford, others have
done nothing at all. Therefore, we would very much welcome pressure
on the local authorities to be proactive and create Changing Place
toilets alongside, as an extra to standard disabled toilets.
Mr Shrank: My members from all
over the country report that the reason why their toilets are
being closed by local authorities is because of the abuse made
of them by various members of the public. I understand from the
police, there are only a relatively small number of people causing
the trouble, but as a result of them causing the trouble those
conveniences are closed and a large element of the community are
suffering as a result. The recent sort of abuse which goes on,
and I am sure you know, is one that is very difficult to prevent
unless you close the place. This is what has happened. They close
them completely and sell them up. In my own town of Shrewsbury
they have sold up I think it is three out of 10 public toilets.
One of them is a hairdressers, another is a Chinese restaurant
and another has just closed. They do this for the simple reason
that they are expensive to maintain, they cannot keep them open
late, which is what the public want, and it is not mandatory.
It just drops off the budget whenever they have to reconsider
what they have to spend their money on. Because it is not a mandatory
duty of local authorities to provide public conveniences, they
close them.
Q4 Chair: From your organisation's
point of view, do you think authorities should have a duty to
provide public toilets?
Mr Shrank: Indeed, I put that
in our report that they do need to do that. Where they do provide
them it is no good providing them just until 8 or 9 o'clock. From
the point of view of my association members, they do not have
a problem themselves within the daytime because they are residents,
they have got their homes and they know the setup in their area
where they live. They have got the same problems when they leave
their homes and go elsewhere that everybody else does, but what
is peculiar to residents' associations, and my association, is
that their members very often live in towns and city centres with
a night economy. When the night economy closes, which can vary
from two to three in the morning, and turn out their patrons there
are no public loos open. Very, very few cities and almost no towns
have 24-hour loos. It is perfectly possible to have a loo open
for 24 hours, Westminster does it, Norwich does it, various places
in the country have at least one in their town centre. It is essential
that you have many more of them because the street fouling which
goes on is appalling, it is disgusting and if you are a resident
affected by it, it ruins your life if every morning, certainly
four or five days a week, you have to go out and clean up the
mess and it should not happen.
Chair: Absolutely.
Q5 Anne Main: You have raised a few
issues that I would like to pin you down on. You have almost described
St Albans; people can go into Marks and Spencer's, British Homes
Stores, Costa, all the other places in the day, pop in and use
the loo, often without charge, no problem whatsoever; in the evenings
is when there is more of a problem. We do have public toilets
which are also closed in the evenings, but what St Albans has
done—I would ask you to consider this because providing
full-time concrete blocks of toilets open 24 hours a day might
be very expensive—is it has got mobile toilets which come
out specifically to deal with the evening economy. They are portaloos,
in effect, self-cleaning. Would you consider that could be a way
forward rather than having a proper, let us put it that way, public
convenience which is kept going all through the day, 24 hours,
because to me that would seem quite onerous on any local authority?
Mr Shrank: You could have some
that are open 24 hours a day, I am not saying all of them should
be. You can get various devices which either come out of the pavement
or are set up in certain places and are fixed and available, you
pay your fee to get in, but on the whole most of those places
are designed for men and not for women. There seems to be an assumption
that women do not get themselves into the same difficulties as
men at night but it is not true, there are just as many women
in trouble as there are men these days because there is no convenient
loo. That is certainly the experience of my members.
Q6 Mr Betts: Can I follow up the
idea you had about having a statutory requirement for local authorities?
Have you thought how that might be framed? Surely it would not
be possible just to say every local authority has got to provide
toilets, there has got to be a bit more definition than that,
has there not?
Ms Holmes: As I understand, there
is an opportunity to look at the Public Health Act of 1936 which
calls on local authorities to provide loos, but does not make
it statutory or a duty to do so and there may or may not be legislative
opportunity to do that. To pick up on the DCLG's recent call,
for example, on Lifetime Neighbourhoods, which is a commitment
to build homes to lifetime standards and also a vision for Lifetime
Neighbourhoods which has to include a provision for everybody,
this would be one driver for local authorities to respond to this
opportunity to create Lifetime Neighbourhoods for everybody. This
would be one way of encouraging them or mandating them to do something
about it. There is also the PSA17, which is a driver on increasing
independence and well-being and that is another opportunity which
currently exists for local authorities to play their part in enabling
the Government to achieve the PSA17 which is a stated intention.
Q7 John Cummings: Public toilets
are obviously seen by many as a basic human right. If we all accept
that particular premise, could each of you give your specific
reasons why the decline in public toilet provision has such an
effect upon the people you represent? Can you give an example
for the record of what your main concerns are?
Mr Jackaman: My main concerns
are that standard disabled toilets do not meet the needs of people
with profound disabilities. In recent years, children who would
have died at premature birth are living because of better medical
health. The increases are rapid and significant in terms of living
longer. There are now interventions, putting tubes in stomachs,
but the social consequences of this are not being met. We put
hoists in people's homes but not into the public toilets. What
we have got is a situation where we have got some 40,000 people
with profound multiple learning disabilities who are living at
home with families who cannot go out and their parents cannot
go out because a standard disabled toilet does not meet their
needs. Perhaps I ought to explain. They assume that people can
use their arms. If you have got pads or cannot use your arms,
like people with profound disabilities, then what happens is parents
have to lay their sons and daughters on the floor. That might
sound a bit horrific but that is what is happening. I work in
the local authority in Nottingham and the reason I got into this
was because the Government says under the Valuing People Agenda,
"We need to get out more" and staff were saying, quite
rightly, "We can only go out for two hours because they need
their pads changing". What this has meant, by having a new
type of disabled toilet which has a hoist, an adult-sized changing
bench and enough room to get either side, is that families, parents
and carers can get out for the whole day. You asked for an example,
a family who live just outside Nottingham—
Q8 Chair: We have got it in the submission,
thank you.
Mr Jackaman: There are many other
examples like that.
Q9 Anne Main: Are you seriously saying
you would expect that in every authority area? How prevalent are
you expecting that degree of support?
Mr Jackaman: What we are asking
for is that to be in major places where the public would go. We
are talking here about city centres and shopping centres. We already
have 50 Changing Place toilets. The Bluewater Shopping Centre,
the MetroCentre, the Trafford Centre have all put Changing Place
toilets in. Nottingham City Council has got it in the city centre.
We have now got three in Nottingham City. They are growing rapidly,
so there are now almost 50 throughout the country.
Q10 Anne Main: Have you any idea
of the cost of them?
Mr Jackaman: The costs vary because
it is space more than anything. The hoist and the changing bench
are less than £8,000, so it is space and the other is standard
toilet furniture. It is redesigning it and putting it in, obviously
if you are doing new builds. If you had someone in this building
who had an incontinence pad, they would not be able to be changed
because they would have to be laid down and there is no hoist
or changing bench. What we are finding, as I said earlier and
that is my main message, is because of advances in medical care
the social implications of that are not being met. It is a bit
like parents were saying years ago, "We need somewhere to
change and feed our babies and there isn't anywhere". I would
suggest we are now into a period with people surviving and because
of better medical care the social impact of that is great.
Chair: I think we have got the
answer to John's question from the other two witnesses.
Q11 John Cummings: I would like to
put one point to Mr Shrank. He might be interested to know that
the Select Committee carried out an inquiry perhaps four or five
years ago into the night time economy and perhaps it is something
you might wish to read up on because it certainly touched on all
the issues which you have raised here this afternoon.
Mr Shrank: My main concern, which
is different from every other group, is the effect of the night
economy on residents because the public toilets are closed.
Q12 John Cummings: You might find
that report interesting.
Mr Shrank: I think I have seen
it, thank you.
Q13 Dr Pugh: I think somebody said
already that people have a right to a public toilet and I do not
think any of us would question that, but in the evidence of Help
the Aged they state that a large proportion of you would be happy
to pay a nominal amount to have public toilets, staff cleaning
and toilets in a good state of repair. Does everyone have a right
to a free public toilet?
Ms Holmes: From our research,
the questionnaire which 1,000-odd people answered, people indicated
they would be happy to pay 10p to 20p. Do they have a right to
a free toilet, I think the answer is people are happy to pay a
bit of money towards their upkeep and the cost and I do not think
it has to be free necessarily.
Q14 Dr Pugh: Does the research not
show that the nominal amount, as you say, is simply that, it is
a nominal amount, it does not cover the cost? Obviously the less
it covers the cost, the more expensive it is for local authorities
to do and the less they do. Is there any way of improving the
economics of this?
Ms Holmes: There should not be
a quid pro quo for how much money is raised by the toilet
and therefore what it costs to run, I think it should be seen
as a broader example of a good community which is welcoming to
all. You cannot cost it simply on what the loo paper and bricks
might end up costing, you have got to see it as part of a broader
context of a neighbourhood that is supporting and enabling its
members to take part and get out and about.
Q15 Dr Pugh: Just pursuing that and,
please, other people come in if they feel they have something
to contribute here, one thing you can clearly do is obviously
reduce the cost of provision. That clearly needs to be analysed
and what that might mean. It might mean something about maintenance,
about design and about reducing the cost of vandalism. From your
experience, are you able to tell us what helpful steps could be
taken which would help local authorities finance the facilities
at a lesser cost or a more economical cost than they are currently
doing?
Mr Shrank: It is a matter of the
design of the cubicles. Some of them have time limits on them
and some of them are made of stainless steel. I am sure the toilet
industry is looking into this because it is obviously very important
for them to be able to provide the facilities which local authorities
want. As long as there is no mandatory duty for the local authority
to provide the facilities, I cannot see them wanting to spend
that sort of money. If it were to be made a statutory duty, then
they need some funding for it.
Q16 Dr Pugh: They would have to look
at some element of redesign of their services. What prompts me
to say this is my own local authority has produced stainless steel
cubicles in the middle of town which have replaced an old Victorian
system that went underground and is now being turned into a wine
bar. I assume one of the arguments for it—I have not looked
closely into it—is that it is more cost-effective to provide
a facility like that. If other local authorities could exemplify
that practice in what they did, they could cut down some of these
rather poor economic stats we are looking at.
Mr Shrank: My association works
on the simple system that a member sends an email to me with a
problem, I email all my members, within two days I get replies
from the people who have had the problem, how they have tackled
it and then I send the answers to the questioner and he or she
can work out which is the best practice for their particular problem.
I am sure this could be done with public toilets. Every local
authority has got their own way of trying to solve this problem.
The problem is if you do not have 24-hour service provided in
some places in the town centre, you then have an expense in the
morning of clearing it up. It either falls on the businesses and
the residents or it falls on the street cleaning service provided
by the local authority. They have an awful lot to do if there
are no public loos open in the middle of the night.
Mr Jackaman: You talk about economics;
with no Changing Place toilets, then people are being prevented
from coming into towns and cities and spending. The example which
is in our submission, of course, highlights that family spent
the whole day in the city centre spending money. The other side
of that coin, of course, is that if you provide support and give
people the exact same right as everybody else, treat people the
same as everybody else, then, of course, families are not going
to crack up with the pressure of not having to go out, they become
totally dependent.
Q17 Dr Pugh: There are hidden economic
benefits, not necessarily to the council but to the wider community?
Mr Jackaman: That is right, there
are definitely hidden economic benefits. We have a situation where
families come from Leicester to shop in Nottingham, so that is
probably quite good for Nottingham.
Q18 Mr Betts: We talked about what
people consider to be a reasonable charge and I accept 10p or
20p for a pensioner going out and doing their shopping is probably
okay, but if we look at provisions for special toilets at night
or keeping them open 24-hours with all the extra costs that can
involve, particularly the extra cost of payment for people at
that time of night as well, would it be reasonable to charge a
bit more for opening, maybe £1? If you are going to spend
£3 on a pint of beer, is it unreasonable to spend a pound
to get rid of it? Is there a case for variable charges?
Mr Shrank: Yes, but it would cost
them nothing to pee up against your door, so why should they spend
£1 when they can do it without trouble. The police take no
action. My understanding is the police have been told the CPS
will not prosecute any human being who street fouls, they will
fine dog owners but not people, and the Home Office has told the
police not to harass people who are fouling the street. As long
as that goes on, they are not going to spend £1 to go and
urinate in a cubicle, they will go on doing what they are doing
now. There are three elements: you have got to try and persuade
the youngsters who are doing this that they have lost their self-respect
and respect for other people's property; you have got to persuade
the police to take action; and then you have got to provide adequate
facilities for them at night. What we have done in Shrewsbury
is we have this notice put up on the back of the front door of
all licensed premises in order to persuade people to take advantage
of the facilities that are there before they go into the street.
Q19 Chair: Has it worked?
Mr Shrank: It has only been going
for about six weeks.
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