Examination of Witnesses (Questions 62-79)
MR MIKE
BONE AND
MR RICHARD
CHISNELL
9 JUNE 2008
Q62 Chair: Can I welcome you and thank
you for coming. This is our second session on public conveniences,
and the Committee is off to the borough of Richmond tomorrow to
look at their community toilet scheme. Can I start by asking you
for your assessment of what the local authorities are doing or
not in relation to public toilets? Do you think they have given
up on providing public toilets?
Mr Chisnell: Yes and no, to be
honest, because there are a lot of authorities, 70 to 80, who
enter our Loo of the Year Award scheme every year; 60 or so are
members of the Association and they take the provision of public
toilets very seriously. There are a number of others, I suspect
the majority, who feel they do their bit but have rather lost
touch with the needs of the modern civilised society in that they
are maintaining very old and antiquated facilities to the best
of their financial ability.
Q63 Chair: Have you looked at what sort
of authorities are in the first group, that is, the ones who are
very positive about it? Is there some general characteristic about
those sorts of councils? Do they have lots of visitors, for example?
Mr Chisnell: Yes. Westminster,
for instance, and East Lothian is the best, we feel, in Britain,
east of Edinburgh, and has been for twenty years because it attaches
a very high priority to its visitor impressions, but it is not
a general picture; it is very mixed. Some of the metropolitan
authorities are the worst offenders at closing public toilets
and they, of course, have the most numbers of visitors. Liverpool
is a classic example, a European city of culture with just two
automatic public toilets, neither of which were working when we
visited 12 months ago. So that is the rather varied picture that
we find as we go about our business.
Q64 Chair: And is it your view that
local authorities should have a duty to provide public conveniences
rather than it being discretionary, as it is at present?
Mr Chisnell: Our experience is
that, inevitably, if we are to have a sea change state of mind
amongst authorities and amongst all other influences, we need
some legislative persuasion, because it has not worked up until
now with encouragement. Yes, we are very grateful to Minister
Phil Woolas and, of course, Baroness Andrews for picking this
challenge up after 10 years of campaigning. On behalf of the general
public—it is not all us, do not get us wrong—the general
public are ready for improvements in this but it has taken a long
time to get where we have. We acknowledge that the guidance document
is very good; we were perhaps a lead body in helping to put that
together so we are very pleased with the government's approach
on that, but our feeling is that without legislative requirement
or empowerment local authorities will find it easy not to do anything
because it is a discretionary service.
Q65 Chair: And who do you think should
fund it?
Mr Chisnell: The provision? Well,
we now have a lot more tools in the armoury because our vision,
if you like, is for government to implement a public toilet provision
Act, which would hopefully be fully compliant by the 2012 Olympics,
which would not require local authorities to provide public toilets
per se but to require local authorities to draw up a strategy
which would indicate to both their residents and their visitors
where people can go to the toilet. Now, it is either a local authority
municipal toilet provision or it is commercial toilets through
community toilet schemes, or it is contracted out services which,
of course, Westminster are doing around this very building now
through their City Loo scheme through a leasing operation—it
is a whole range of provision and this is the modern world. We
cannot expect local authorities to provide all public toilets
but we do expect in a modern, civilised Britain that local authorities,
as the main providers of public services—and this we suggest
is a frontline public service because that is what people want
to do on arrival anywhere, visit the toilet—should be required
to have a strategy in place which indicates where people can go
to the toilet.
Q66 Mr Olner: As an ex local government
member I never thought there were many votes in loos; it is certainly
not something that is high upon the priority agenda of local councillors.
How do you make local councillors more aware of the essential
provision?
Mr Chisnell: If I may refer you
to the 2004 local elections, where five councils were threatened
with capping, Shepway and Torbay amongst them, they closed all
their public toilets overnight. Michael Howard called us down
to his constituency in Folkestone on the Saturday and on BBC 2
Newsnight, when the election was held two or three weeks
later, four or five members of the public, when asked why they
voted Tory against the national trend for Lib Dem, all said "Because
they shut the public toilets", so public toilets are big
vote pullers. There are numbers of examples, and we are not saying
it is one party or the other; all three parties, depending on
who is in power, have this difficult balancing act with the electors.
It is a big issue with electors locally.
Q67 Mr Olner: Do you think local
authorities are making the best use of their available planning
and licensing powers to ensure that there is adequate toilet provision?
I have to say, it comes very low down the list, in my opinion,
of local authorities.
Mr Chisnell: That is the problem.
Q68 Mr Olner: But where can they
use what powers they have to let somebody fill that vacuum so
the public toilets are provided?
Mr Chisnell: Well, there are some
increasing examples of Section 106, Victoria Plaza is a prime
one along the road here, where the public toilet is provided as
part of the planning consent, and we always encourage that when
we talk to local authorities and we have given best practice advice
to numbers of them over the years.
Q69 Mr Olner: Where would that advice
be given? There are lots of things that can be provided by Section
106 agreement. Where would you influence the fact that a public
toilet should be provided by Section 106 as opposed to something
else?
Mr Chisnell: Well, that is a relevant
question and a slightly difficult one, but anywhere where there
is a public realm involvement, be it a car park, a public place,
a shopping centre, we would expect that planning application to
be examined for some toilet capability. Now, shopping centres
obviously tend to have public toilets and better ones because
they know they can keep their customers there longer if they satisfy
their toileting needs, but there are a lot of other locations
where we would suggest that planning applications are not being
properly inspected for possible public toilet provision.
Mr Bone: There is a recent example
in Ilminster, South Somerset, where Tesco were given permission
to build a new superstore dependent on a new public toilet being
built.
Q70 Chair: Do they just provide the
public toilet? Who pays for the continuing running costs?
Mr Bone: The main service is down
to the Council; it was just provision of the toilet. The capital
expenditure was covered.
Q71 Anne Main: Can I ask you to expand
slightly on what level of provision you would be anticipating
any local authority (or whoever would be providing it) would provide,
because we have had some interesting evidence ranging from automatic
loos that would be there perhaps 24/7, others wanting extremely
high level of provision of disability toilets that would facilitate
even being able to change incontinence pads with adults and hoists,
and some anticipating something that is perhaps locked up for
a lot of hours. So what is it you are really advocating, and I
would quite like you to be specific because obviously the implications
would be different for all the different sorts?
Mr Bone: We believe there are
various types of facilities required. We would like to see in
larger towns and cities a visitor welcome centre which would combine
a fully inclusive toilet, with perhaps a visitor centre and also
a café or a restaurant, so that when people arrive they
can use the toilet, the information centre and have a tea or coffee
as well if they want to, so we see that in the larger locations
as the keystone. Then in prominent places there would be local
authority provided toilets, which could be either funded by the
Council or contracted out, so not cost the Council very much at
all. With regard to the toilets themselves we would like inclusive
facilities for all types of users, so not just male and female
but also for the disabled, DDA-compliant accessible toilets, and
also Changing Places type toilets. We now have 40 or 50 in the
country already which really cater for the severely physically
and mentally handicapped where they do need a hoist, and facilities
where people can go to the toilet without using tissue paper,
et cetera, and also, of course, family friendly facilities
where men can take their daughters or carers can take opposite
sex children and use a toilet in the same building without having
to leave the baby outside while they go to the toilet. So that
is what we see as being fully inclusive facilities.
Q72 Anne Main: And the hours of operation?
Mr Bone: That would depend on
the use and location. If it was in a town centre where people
need the toilet 24 hours a day we believe there should be facilities
24 hours a day. In a country location where the population is
not there during the night, then you change it accordingly. So
it would depend on the location and usage in that area. We need
to meet the requirements of users in that area at that time.
Q73 Anne Main: And the cost should
be borne by?
Mr Bone: We do not have a problem
with charging for toilets providing they are good, safe, clean
facilities that people would want to use, whether that is 20p
up to a maximum of 50p that is dependent on the council and the
facilities provided. Here in London there is a range. Just outside
there is a toilet which is 50p which is a good, clean, useable
toilet and people use it and pay 50p.
Q74 Anne Main: Do you believe that
covers the cost?
Mr Bone: It can do over a leasing
period for a private contractor, yes.
Q75 Mr Olner: Just quickly, obviously
your authority has a huge interface with local government. How
often do you talk to the Local Government Association and other
like-minded bodies to ensure that your views are regarded as priorities
with them?
Mr Chisnell: Very little. We did
approach the LGA some years ago but we were advised that we had
all possible openings through our Chairman at the time, now our
Honorary President, Sir William Lawrence, who is involved with
the Local Government Association. We interface whenever we can
with the bodies that might be relevant but having tried to woo,
if you like, the Local Government Association some years ago we
have not tried since. We had a rebuff.
Mr Bone: But we do communicate.
Within the last two months we have written to all the chief executives
of all the local authorities in the country explaining what our
campaign is about and what the BTA is about, so it is very one-way
to some extent. I have only taken over from Richard since 1 April
but I have had many councils phoning up since then responding
to that communication, so things are starting to move.
Q76 Mr Betts: We are looking at maybe
a legal requirement on councils to have a strategy or a plan for
public toilet provision in their area. What you are really saying
to us is that there should be a requirement on councils at least
to look at this issue and come to a view about what is reasonable.
In the end we cannot be specific, can we, in national legislation
about what outcomes they eventually reach?
Mr Chisnell: No. That is exactly
it. We do not want councils to be able to avoid taking this issue
more seriously and giving it a higher profile, as so many councils
are doing. It is basic human society stuff and has been done already.
All we are saying is that as a council you cannot opt out of looking
at this issue and coming up with firm recommendations as to how
you are going to satisfy your residents' and your visitors' toileting
needs.
Q77 Mr Betts: In terms of the charges,
last week we had evidence that some authorities charge for the
use of public toilets and are bringing in something like 10% of
the cost of running them, and you almost wonder what is the point
of that. Indeed, some of the evidence was that in one case more
was spent on replacing the payment mechanisms on the doors of
toilets than was collected in the charges. Would it not be better
just to say this is not really cost effective and we might as
well make them free?
Mr Chisnell: In an ideal world
we would welcome them all being free, as many of the best authorities
currently practise. It is the same with railway stations. To see
people queuing up with luggage, and families trying to get through
a turnstile and put money in a coin-operated slot before catching
a train is pitiful in Britain in the 21st century, but that is
the way it is because operating companies and train stations want
the revenue, and that is why they are often underground because
they are not prepared to put them above ground.
Q78 Mr Olner: They will not do it
for nothing, will they?
Mr Chisnell: No. That is why we
are saying if there is a charge to be applied then it has to be
applied, as long as the toilet is in a fit-for-purpose state.
We feel there is opportunity to include in the price of a rail
ticket not just a seat in an air-conditioned carriage but a toilet
for a long distance traveller or a medium distance traveller,
and also on the station when you arrive or before you depart.
Airport terminals do not charge for the use of toilets—yet!
Q79 Mr Betts: In terms of the funding,
then, clearly charging would be a small element but much of it
will fall back on council taxpayers or the local council at present.
Do you think there is any case for trying to get businesses which
benefit in particular from tourists coming to an area to make
an extra contribution? Business improvement districts are around
now in some cases but they tend to provide things like hanging
baskets and better streets, and perhaps they have not moved on
to public toilet provision. Is that another area where you want
to see some development?
Mr Chisnell: Yes, indeed, and
we have just driven up the Devon and Dorset coast on our way back
from Penzance over the weekend, and to see all the beautiful flowerbeds
in Lyme Regis and Sidmouth and other towns looking absolutely
fantastic makes one proud to be part of 21st-century Britain,
but then to go and look at the toilets of these places is a totally
different picture, and that is a shame because, on the one hand,
one feels pride and, on the other, one feels rather upset that
this is still allowed to happen in a modern Britain. There are
a lot of opportunities for local authorities to be able to spread
the cost. Businesses, of course, already pay rates but we feel
that there ought to be some incentive for businesses to open up
their toilets, because we all nip into the pub or the café
but maybe some business rate relief ought to be considered, because
they are then providing a public service.
Mr Bone: I mentioned earlier family
welcome centres. One of the opportunities there, rather like the
motorway service stations do, is for those to provide marketing
in public toilets which is possible and is a revenue earner. So
that is another way companies could provide towards the cost of
toilets.
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