Lack of public toilets. (not Trans/GC related)

[youkiddingme]

Our local town has no public toilets. It has a market twice a week, a fair few shops, and is used by a lot of women and a lot of elderly people. We used to be able to use them in the town hall - but they are now roped off. We had a new bus station built not long ago and the council specified it must have no public toilets. Complaints are met with, 'we are not legally obliged to provide public toilets'. I really didn't know that. if you ask in the town you are told to go to one of the pubs, but as a lone disabled women going into a strange pub does not appeal, and what about women with children? I can't help wondering where all the people that are around town in the evening are weeing.

Got me googling and it looks like shutting loos altogether is quite a popular idea with councils. This is the most recent thing I could find with any figures and it's really depressing.

inews.co.uk/news/long-reads/uk-public-toilets-disappear-cuts/

No i agree completely with you

There are usually some in shopping centres

But no outdoor public ones if that makes sense...the odd ones you find are disgusting or locked for unknown reasons

How are they not legally obliged to provide loos...thats one of the stupidest things ive heard

There is no shopping centre in our town. There is no loos in the small supermarket. There is literally only the pub or a cafe - which means buying food or drinks you might not want.

Sorry kidding I should have said that its hard to find toilets outside of shopping centres

There are rumours that our centre is being closed down...gradually. With those gone there will be just one set of toilets at one end of town

But shopping centres and large department stores are the only places i can think of thats always have toilets

As someone with ulcerative colitis, I find it terrible that public facilities are vanishing. When I am sick, I am constantly afraid of going out and not being able to find a toilet in time. I end up staying home. But sometimes you can't. I have experienced some really stressful times when I have been turned away and told to go to such and such place blocks away.

I will say that in a large Boots store this past spring, a very kind staff member escorted me through to the employee washroom as there were no public facilities and I couldn't wait.

This thread has made me think, I haven't used a 'Public Convenience' in years. In my town both sets of public (council owned) toilets closed years ago. One set is now a cab office and the other a car wash. Only toilets are the shopping centre, cafes or pubs.

But shopping centres and large department stores are the only places i can think of thats always have toilets

I don't think this is a recent thing. I can't think of when I last used a council owned loo in the UK (the last public loo I used was in June in a tiny mountain village in Switzerland) I can't even think of any in Edinburgh except the ones in west Princes Street Gardens which look pretty unappealing. (Come to think of it, I can't think of any in London either) On Princes' Street, Debenhams, Jenner's, M&S, Waterstones and the National Gallery have loos which can be used without the need to buy anything. Obviously there are Costas, Starbucks and Café Neros but they are likely to require you buy something. I appreciate not everyone can spend a couple of pounds to spend a penny but chain pubs like All Bar One and Wetherspoons have good loos which are fine for women on their own and will have disabled facilities.

My go to loo when my son was small was Macdonald's. Buy the cheapest item and use their loo.

I have also used loos in very grand hotels without being a guest or buying anything but that requires a bit of confidence.

Women in the Highlands got sick of exactly this shit.
www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-highlands-islands-44898116

Hotels are good, just march in like you own the place and the loos are usually somewhere between reception and the lifts.

Wetherspoons always have good, clean loos and the pubs are so vast that the bar staff won't even notice you going to them, never mind say anything.

But yes, it is an utter scandal that public toilets are being (well, have been almost completely) taken away.

Everyone needs to pee ffs, why do people act like toilets are optional or nice-to-have?

The one hotel we have is also a pub

It has 3 entrances so its dead easy to go for a wee

But I agree with the OP....shouldn’t need to be sneaking into loos...even though i am very good at it 😀

I think dd at 17 would struggle

I have also used loos in very grand hotels without being a guest or buying anything but that requires a bit of confidence.

My DH does that.

I live in the northwest, we have them in shopping centres, also some in parks which I assume are council run. In smaller places there are quite often ones which cost 20p - I think some are described as being 'community' funded rather than council, not sure exactly what that entails.

It's depressingly predictable that when budgets are tight it's services which disproportionately affect women, the disabled and the poor that suffer.

I do appreciate that public toilets are likely expensive to run and vulnerable to anti-social behaviour.

I took my DD into the toilet of a large restaurant off a motorway on a long journey home not long ago.

I always, always ask at the bar if it is ok first but this time it was busy, there was no one to ask and my five year old who has been on antibiotics since age 3 for recurrent urine infections could not wait.

In fact she’d wet her trousers (leaked but not full on accident) on the way in and as I walked her out of the toilet humiliated and dressed in nothing from the waist down but with my hoodie tied around her legs a barman accosted us and tapped a sign stating that a donation was required to use the toilets.

I had the hand of a distressed five year old in one hand and a pile of soiled clothes in the other and my purse was in the car as we were dashing for an emergency wee.

Clearly they have become entirely used to being used as a public convenience and I don’t blame them for charging but if there is such a need that they are placing signs up and accosting humiliated children without trousers then I wonder if there isn’t more the state could do to help address the lack of facilities.

It seems to be the way things are going. I took a bus journey to Tavistock a few weeks ago and after about an hour and a half on a hot bus, and having guzzled much water, arrived to find the loos closed at the bus station. Not good

Obviously if she’d have been a five year old boy she could have peed standing up in a hedge but biological girls aren’t built that way and I can’t hold her up for that.

Big, long, hefty skirts making a comeback for women with the next 30 years then, so we can pee discreetly in the verges without being clocked like our foremothers did in days of yore.
Funny, innit, 30 years ago we thought the next hundred years would be all shiny progress, swooshy doors and flying cars. Now we're realizing it's going to 17th century Mk2.

They are locking them at our local park/playground now. The council have spent a fortune on a big new play area with different sections for different ages and they lock the toilets.
If you needed more than a wee, do they need to do it in the bushes.
I have just toilet trained my son, but if he needs a poo, I'm not quite sure what to do with him.
The play area is widely unused now since this, what a waste or money

The loss of public toilets is well-documented.

Obviously if she’d have been a five year old boy she could have peed standing up in a hedge but biological girls aren’t built that way

Despite the OP not wanting this to be a GC thread, I feel obliged to note that the ability to urinate discreetly outdoors is one of those times where biological sex is the differentiating factor.

I'd suggest a she-wee but mine leaks: pubic hair acts as a wick and I get damp trousers.

In fact she’d wet her trousers (leaked but not full on accident) on the way in and as I walked her out of the toilet humiliated and dressed in nothing from the waist down but with my hoodie tied around her legs a barman accosted us and tapped a sign stating that a donation was required to use the toilets

Sorry, this is going to sound snippy but what was the point of removing her clothes? No one would have noticed her wet trousers but they would certainly notice her dressed in nothing from the waste down.

You could have walked her out of the restaurant and removed the wet clothes in the privacy of your car. Or if you really felt you had to remove them would the hoodie not have been better worn as a dress? An adult sized hoodie will be well below bum length on a 5 year old.

Re small boys pee'ing in hedges, speaking from experience, outdoor peeing, is not that difficult for a girl or a woman if they are wearing a loose skirt.

Big, long, hefty skirts making a comeback for women with the next 30 years then, so we can pee discreetly in the verges without being clocked like our foremothers did in days of yore

As I discovered, being the only woman wearing a skirt, in a tour group in a pit stop in the middle of nowhere in Laos.

Strange, because although I have been aware of closing of public loo, I have had only positive experiences recently. But I wonder if that is because they were in tourist areas. There used to be an amazing Ladies in Covent Garden decorated with flowers and knick knacks.

On a day trip to Cambridge found a well signposted Ladies which also politely told me that I should be aware there was a male attendent. And a couple of seaside towns with toilets. But yes it often seems to be in train or bus stations that toilets are closed. London underground is a nightmare.

In London there was a scheme that encouraged shops and restuarants to have a sign up saying members of the public were welcome to use the facilities.

And also have found Weatherspoons have very spacious toilets (not forgetting that back in 70s some women's groups used the toilets in Waterloo to meet up as it was apparently very big).

So I suppose as with other things local people in the UK face cuts but if you are tourist you get better facilities.

Found this on the BBC web site showing number of closures of public loos. www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-45009337

And I think this must be the campaign about pubs etc., opening up their facilities to non customer. www.btaloos.co.uk/?p=1937

Have just remembered that in some areas of cities where there are boozy nights out, they have installed those horrible pissoires (no idea how you spell it) or even that gross tube thing - for the convenience of men.

I'm old enough to remember, pre motorways that it was common to pull over to the side of the road and hop behind a hedge. Young, old, male, female.

Maybe as someone up thread said, if men can just piss up against a wall women should, with or without a long skirt) just squat down in a corner!

Isn't there a law that allows pregnant women to relieve themselves in public?!

She was humiliated because she'd wet herself. I removed her clothes so I could wash down her skin which was covered in her infected urine.

She was wearing my hoodie as a dress, which I appreciate I didn't explain very well with this line: "dressed in nothing from the waist down but with my hoodie tied around her legs "

It was tied around her waist and covering her legs like a skirt.

But you, you work away there 'not wanting to be snippy' but only contributing to a thread to tell me what a crap parent I must be. Well done. Bravo.

Wacademia, yes, this: "I feel obliged to note that the ability to urinate discreetly outdoors is one of those times where biological sex is the differentiating factor" I agree.

"speaking from experience, outdoor peeing, is not that difficult for a girl or a woman if they are wearing a loose skirt."

Yet for self conscious, in pain five year old girls this is not optimal. It was difficult. I'm sorry that your narrow range of experience prevents you from understanding that but my daughter didn't want to squat with her bare arse on display at the far end of a carpark where a boy could discreetly have pulled out his penis.

I'm sorry it's upsetting you so much. But it is how it is.

AncientStudent

Absolutely necessary that people with medical conditions of any age should not be stopped from using toilets in service stations or where ever.

Probably not top most on your mind, but a public comment about that restuarant on facebook or some where.

She was wearing my hoodie as a dress, which I appreciate I didn't explain very well with this line: "dressed in nothing from the waist down but with my hoodie tied around her legs

You didn't explain it well at all. That doesn't suggest she was wearing it as a dress. Putting it on over her head, like a dress would have drawn less attention to her leaving the restaurant.

You might want to consider putting her in skirts or dresses which won't show up accidents as much and are far easier for outdoor pee'ing.