Now, here’s a challenge – write an entire article about public lavatories without recourse to toilet humour. Here goes, courtesy of the BBC write-up…
Local authorities should have a “statutory duty” to provide public toilets, the government has been urged. Some 26 MPs have signed a House of Commons motion arguing that the closure of public lavatories in recent years has been damaging. … The MPs, led by the Lib Dem environment spokesman Tim Farron, are backing a campaign by the British Toilets Association (BTA) for better facilities.
Mr Farron said the fact councils were not compelled to provide toilets meant many areas – particularly in the countryside – faced a chronic lack of amenities. “It’s an issue for everybody – we all need to use the loo,” he said. “But in rural areas, where there are often large elderly populations and there aren’t any public toilets from one mile to the next, it’s particularly acute.”
Here’s the text of Tim’s EDM 176 (which seems to date from November 2006, albeit it’s on;y just being reported):
That this House believes that the provision of public lavatories is a vital public service and notes with regret the closure of public lavatories over recent years, including a quarter of those in South Lakeland; recognises that these closures have a particular impact on older and disabled people and those with young families; also notes the recent National Consumer Council survey of 2,000 adults, which branded the UK’s public lavatories a ‘national disgrace’; and calls upon the Government to make the provision of public lavatories a statutory duty for local authorities and to provide the necessary resources to enable them to do so.
Okay, phew, got to the end of the article with not even a single allusion to ‘going down the pan’, ‘papering over the cracks’, or ‘at our conveniece’. Truly I have matured from boy to man.
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6 Comments
This motion will never get passed.
Sorry.
It’s because of parliament’s constipated procedures.
I’ll go now.
And Farron gets paid £ 64,000 a year to come up with this crap.
In similar vein, might I recommend the report of Cardiff Council’s Environmental Scrutiny Committee on public toilet provision (an inquiry I thoroughly enjoyed sitting on…)
http://www.cardiff.gov.uk/objview.asp?object_id=14391
What better way for politicians to regain the trust and support of British people than to demand, and legislate for, more and better publicly accessible toilet facilities that meet the most basic human need of all typea of users.This is an issue that effects all voters and will influence choices.
in response to john zims:
this is a significant issue for many of Tim’s constituents, and it is right and proper that he represents their views. Isn’t that part of the job of an MP?
I have noted that there is a commensurate decrease in public toilets with closure due to to `Recession’ of our local pubs.
In Waltham Forest there has been a decline in some of our well patronised local hostelries.i.e. `Prince of Wales’ and `Coach and Horses’ and many more across the entire Borough.
The closure of our `Public Houses’ has removed many public toilets, besides the pub catering and customer hospitality trade base has suffered.
I ask Government to lunch a new initiative to support `Publican Landlords’ as they are an indispensable stable of the High Street landscape and now fast disappearing.
Small businesses have taken a real hammering under Gordon Brown and require a Government led cash fuel injection, to also offer a public toilet, especially if located in busy shopping mall’s.