Leisure centre call police on one woman with a hand sewn #redflag banner

There is a large mixed changing area, - which I am sure will now be mainly for the men and the women will be squashed and uncomfortable in the smaller space.

To be honest I think it was financial. They wanted more gym space and decided that a mixed sex changing village would be ok. Why wouldn't they? All the new leisure centres have them!

No excuse for the toilets though. They are shocking.

And why all this trouble and expense and increased risk for everybody?

To avoid saying 'no' to crossdressing men and mad activists.

Yes the whole thing is a nightmare, caused by their need to fit 2x changing rooms in one.

What a disaster if it’s enclosed and mixed sex toilets and changing cubicles. Privacy overrides ventilation, cleaning ability, supervision and prevention of misuse.

An update!

Plans are now in place at Gosforth to modify the toilets in the changing village to be fully enclosed.

Additional toilet provision will be added by the gym.

Better signage on the group change should facilitate use/availability for those who want to use it outside school hours.

Further changes may be needed once Sport England extract their digit from their terminus and update their design guidelines for pool change and their Accessible and Inclusive Sports Facilities guidance.

So a small improvement in privacy, but still some way to go.

There’s a AIBU about a mixed sex accessible changing room in a gym. It’s a private design I believe and the man opened it from the outside to enter.

I think a new generation of people are beginning to realise the limitations of mixed sex changing rooms and toilets.

Older generations somehow ‘got it’ which is why we have single sex facilities. Alas, disabled people are not deemed worthy enough to have single sex facilities yet -because it would be costly economically.

I still can’t get over how ‘let’s add more unisex provision’ is the ‘solution’ without risk assessments.

In my opinion the mixed sex changing and toileting at Gosforth is all discriminatory. I have no idea how anyone trained in safeguarding ever signed off on it. Assuming they even thought about safeguarding. Which I don't think they did.

The idea that women and girls attending a UK leisure centre need to change in an accessible toilet to feel safe boggles my mind. And where does that leave the people who actually need the accessible toilet? Outside waiting, I guess! 😡

It's a pretty specific situation at Gosforth because they just converted the female change to mixed sex and as a result created sanitary provision that is inherently discriminatory. I guess their equality impact assessment (that they say they did but won't show me) wasn't up to much!

Is there a template letter we could all send to operators of leisure centres with changing villages, based on that case?

Thank you for your actions to support women and children, and for sharing this. I will be sharing this with the relevant politicians in Australia, as our rights to single sex spaces have now been entirely abolished. You are a legend 💚🤍💜

It's a first instance judgment in a different country with a different legal system, but it's an indication of the direction of travel on these EA2010 cases. I also think it helps that the judgment references the Darlington nurses case.

"Reliance was placed on observations made by the Employment Tribunal in Hutchinson v County Durham and Darlington NHS Foundation Trust [2026] 1 WLUK 238 (“Hutchinson”) paragraphs 270 to 272. In those passages the tribunal found that, if required to change their clothes in a communal changing room shared by men and women, women are generally more sensitive than men, and more likely
to suffer reactions of fear, distress and humiliation than men. "

https://www.scotcourts.gov.uk/media/mv5d53jw/2026csoh52-petition-of-de-and-fg-against-west-lothian-council.pdf

Good for you, @MrsM1ggins ! Can't wait to hear their response. These fuckers think they can keep breaking the law, and getting away with it.

Thread resurrection! The judgment last week about mixed sex toilets in a scottish primary school has prompted me to write to GLL (Grenwich Leisure Ltd aka Better) again.

Any regular users seen any changes?

@DrPrunesqualer BSR in the HSE seem sensible people. I was in touch with them last year. I reckon they are rather busy at the moment!

There does seem to be this disconnect with some of the quick and ‘easy’ solutions EHRC seemed to be proposing and the reality of what happens in practice and building standards.

I applaud you MrsM1ggins.
Thank you so much for your efforts, please keep chipping away.
I really hope you win this, for Gosforth and beyond.

Building control is now outsourced. In the70s it was all done by central Government

It’s incredibly difficult to even check which private company is dealing with compliance.

Building control also have no liability for the checks they do and for signing off a building. Remember how difficult it was to source the culprit for Grenfell. All works of which were signed off by bc.

if you are making an internal change only ( no extensions or external volume change) to a non listed building you must get building regs approval
You don’t need planning permission

Not just for this subject matter here but for many other areas ie drainage, fire etc

You should report the swimming pool to the local planning authority

All accessible toilets can have gaps if they are located within a single sex space
If they aren’t
ie off a mixed use corridor or public space they can’t

The changes at Gosforth were done without planning permission or building control.

Way back in the 70s I worked at a junior level in civil engineering and building work. And this is what I find a bit hard to work out now. Cos, I'm thinking, this all has to be signed off, there's a system, Building Control, etc. So how is this happening? The last couple of posts have opened my eyes. 🤔