To expect the toilet in the park to be open?

[PassingStranger]

Lots of people in the park today as it's a Sunny Bank Holiday.
Picnics, walks, bike rides etc.
Council closed all the toilets how crazy?
Talk about not care about people?

It's not that simple. Often town centre refurbishments etc are funded by grants or by investment from construction projects. It can't be used to fund social care of education or libraries or toilets. My local authority is nearly bankrupt, have had to make millions of pounds of cuts year on year because of the withdrawal of funding from central govenrnment and are now cutting right back to statutory minimums only. That's large scale redundancies as well as cuts to the few remaining public services. Unless you have a really wealthy population that doesn't have many kids, disabled people or elderly, your local authority will be struggling.

Because the food and drink place may not be run by the council, so they have no obligation to provide lavatories.
Have you been living on Mars recently? I as because most people know council funding has been slashed to buggery, and if it's a toss-up between a carer for a child with complex needs and a public lav, well I know which i would choose if I were in charge of council (and council tax payer's) money

Omg! Here isxa conclusion, please feel free to jump to it.
Disgustingly homophobic

@VestibuleVirgin Come on, don't be so naiive.

Lack of willingness to pay bank holiday rates to the cleaners more like.

I’ve never known a park to have a public toilet. Not where I live. Some cafes have stickers in the window saying the toilets are open to the public - it’s part of a scheme.

It's frustrating, I still have to carry a potty for my dc even though she's been trained for a year, because you just never know if a loo is available.

I'm lucky as my nearest parks are big and quite touristy, so they have bigger budgets from hosting high profile events and their toilets are always open. But we like to explore other parks across the city to keep things interesting and many of the council-run ones are very run down.

Naive? Please explain what you mean in this context.

Our local park has never had any toilets but there's another well used park nearby where the toilets have been closed since last year. You have to pay a minimum of £2 to park at said park between 7.30am and 10pm, 7 days a week but presumably that isn't sufficient to maintain toilets

I have a stoma so really need toilets to be open.

They should be open, of course.
We went to a small town and found its toilet closed (during working hours).
A sign on the door pointed people to the library which has a toilet, but the library is only open about 3 half days a week and was a 10 minute walk away.
DH ended up going for a wee in the Coop carpark and I dont blame him 🤷🏼‍♀️

We're in a town of 12,000 people and have 5 sets of proper public toilets, plus 4 supermarkets with toilets!
I appreciate how unusually well served we are.
I won't visit somewhere if I know there isn't a toilet.

People like to say: the council could do it if they wanted to/council are incompetent/council spend x amount on shit stuff.

Become a councillor then, see how it works on the inside, the idea that these are all incompetents only looking out for themselves is such bigotry. Imagine how employed council workers feel and who regularly get abuse on social media for stuff that is not only beyond their control and centrally determined, but who also go into work every day to do their best and get called shit online because their bins haven’t been collected.

If you know better, then you go and set the budgets. I’m not saying the system is perfect, but can you do better? I hate First Past The Post, so I campaign for a more representative system by being a member of Electoral Reform. So I complain but I am doing something.

Also, before anyone asks, I am not a councillor. I also do not work for the public sector.

Councils can't afford toilets but - https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-13375983/Fury-cash-strapped-council-spends-5-3million-upgrading-cycle-lanes-one-widest-safest-roads-seaside-town.html

Read it and weep!!

You seem to think you’re disproving my comment? You’re not. If they are only willing to pay a certain wage and people won’t work for that wage then it’s still a resource issue.

Oh the Daily Mail. No media bias there then. Particularly as it is a LD-run council and we all know the politics of the paper. Plus what they always fail to singularly mention is how developments are in respond to community consultation, they aren’t dreamt out of thin air.

It's a literal piss take. They expect people to hold it in for several hours? It will put people off going. The council expect the burden to fall on nearby cafes and food businesses who are obliged to have facilities. Then they refuse people as they get messy and not enough staff etc. people leave mean reviews about local businesses as they were refused toilets etc. Plus people can get prosecuted for flashing just by going in a shrubbery out of desperation.
They really need to accept that everyone needs the bathroom and a public place like a park needs facilities. Even shed type cabins or god forbid, portaloos is better than nothing. But that would cost more than just keeping the ones they have maintained.

As @LlynTegid pointed out:-

Not just vandalism, but drug taking and in the case of the men's toilets, possibly cottaging

You waved away facts as being homophobic. So I think you are being naive as to what some men use public toilets for.

Hope that helps.

Been gorgeous sunshine all long weekend here.

Our "big" park doesn't have any toilets at all anywhere nearby.

I am perfectly well aware that cottaging exists, thank you. Ridiculous, though that OP immediately assumes that is a reason for closure

Both sets of toilets in our town have closed. Both were being constantly vandalised by a gang of teenagers and even though the police knew who they were nothing was done. The council have said they cannot go on spending money on repairing them.

Both Costas let people use their toilets without buying a coffee. Two supermarkets have toilets too.

If you know better, then you go and set the budgets. I’m not saying the system is perfect, but can you do better?

I obviously can't speak for others, but in my own area a small, neurodiverse amoeba could probably do better - for a start by not using contractors who charge at least 3 times as much as competitors (which will at least fund some of the backhanders) and by not handing their own jobs to "partners" who cost far more than doing it themselves, knowing nobody will ask questions

As for "stand as a councillor yourself then", don't make me laugh. I've worked alongside them in the community for decades and frequently been asked to do exactly that - except after so much experience of what they do I've learned I'm simply not corrupt enough to enter politics

The lack of public toilets in this country infuriates me, stopped at a couple of petrol stations today (we were on a very long drive), had to detour quite a way, got stuck in traffic to to so, before finding one. Piss all over the floor of course. I have to stop about every 30 mins, its a nightmare.

I'm not clicking on a Mail link, @KidsandKindness, but if as it appears that was about insensate spending on cycle lanes you'll probably be told "it comes out of a different pot"

So let them change the funding arrangements, but don't come whining "we're cut to the bone" when it's really a matter of warped priorities

YANBU - local councils can find money for all sorts of things such as 'consultants' because they don't have the in-house ability/intelligence to carry out the very basic functions for which they even exist.

The cherry for me at the mo is that even though my Local District Council's employees have some of the best working T&Cs available in the area, yet one of the harshest Council Tax Support regimes in England; somehow the local Council Taxpayers (which is everyone working age no matter how poor) are paying for making up a 'shortfall' on the Council Employee Pension Scheme.

We paid for their employee showers years ago, they really don't give a shit if people need a shit is my observation.