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/

It’s so wrong that people are forced to use places like McDs and Starbucks in this way. Yes they are big companies but it isn’t up to them to provide public toilets.

I am very lucky where I live. Two shopping centres with loos, two of the parks have toilets and there is one council owned one in the town centre.

If I bought a coffee in McDonald's, I'd be desperate for the loo again quite quickly!

You don't have to drink it ! I just mentioned it as being a very cheap item to buy. It isn't up to McDonald's to provide free public toilets but every parent knows McDonald's is an option for a child in an emergency. I was grateful to them. There's no need to take advantage.

A lot of our toilets closed down because of being vandalised and simply people taking drugs in there we used to have a big block thing of them on the common but they went, and to be honest I'm happy they went

They was always dirty and people hanging around outside, another time some one had overdosed in there which was just sad for the person who found them and obviously the person who had passed. Another toilet block has now just been converted into a cafe thing but the toilets had been closed since early 2000's I think so that's what 19 years of just sitting there empty. And it stunk when the doors was opened back up
We are lucky though we have Starbucks to use, pubs and the council loos, Asda's Sainsbury's Morrison's etc our town centre is okay

I think it's worse in run down areas too when I used to live in south London a certain area it had no toilets at all to use and the last stop on the bus was by the estate and the bus drivers used to wait there before going again.
The whole strip of where they waited stunk of piss especially in summer but what else could they do? The worst time was when we saw a bus driver take a poo in the bin shed but again if you have to go you have to go nothing they can do, it's still like it now I feel sorry for bus drivers

This is worth a read if you have a spare five minutes. The lack of public loos is a huge problem requiring a radical solution.
www.lrb.co.uk/v41/n09/owen-hatherley/the-socialist-lavatory-league

'The whole strip of where they waited stunk of piss especially in summer but what else could they do?'

Piss in a bottle and take it home or pour it down a drain.
Sorry, I have sympathy for them re the lack of toilets but that was still unnecessary.
As for the poo, leaving human waste around is unacceptable. If dog owners can scoop poo so can bus drivers caught short.

www.pressandjournal.co.uk/fp/news/aberdeen/1810818/vandals-cause-confusion-by-sticking-unisex-signs-to-stonehaven-toilets-during-spree-of-destruction/amp/?fbclid=IwAR12IVUTL9eLxcaJ5ZX3NpTYdUAB43li_6GkFz2WYEj5xheA38DyVOcmKZM

This is very pertinent.

I can't for the life of me think of a solution.

I am a frequent customer of loos when out, and some places are deserts where convenience is concerned.

However, what is to be done about vandals and anti-social behaviour? I once went in a public loo at a US seaside place and all the doors had been removed and the floor was covered with needles. It was beyond grim.

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

1. I never wear skirts, loose or otherwise.
2. It is still 'difficult', because the pee is inclined to dribble down your inside legs. Knickers tend to present something of a problem, too.
3. It is still 'difficult' in a fucking town centre, which was the whole context of the OP's thread.

I have plenty of outdoor peeing experience due to hillwalking. The secret is to crouch down as low as you can. The pee doesn't dribble down your legs because they are higher than your arse, and your knickers are round your ankles so they are further forward than the stream of pee, which hits the ground before reaching them. Obviously you pay attention to the slope of the ground when orientating yourself.
However, I don't know a way to do it without exposing the bum, which is not something it is generally a good idea to do in town.
The mechanics aren't a problem - but it is MUCH harder to do it discreetly as a woman than a man, and you are extremely vulnerable while you are doing it. So the lack of toilets is always going to impact more on women than men, quite apart from the fact that we are the ones whose plumbing has gone to pot through pregnancy and childbirth.

The story from the Press & Journal is depressing. 2 small, independent, local business offering a free facility at their expense and it's trashed.

It really is. I honestly don't get why someone would do that once let alone twice.

I think there really ought to be active campaigning for a) more public toilets generally and b) for businesses over a certain size to be legally compelled to let members of the public use their toilet facilities - perhaps extend both the awareness of and the obligation to accept those Can't Wait cards given to people with bowel diseases.
Though I have found, while doing my job, that the little independent cafe is actually more likely to let you use the loo than fucking tax dodging coffee shop chains.
Because the lack of toilets is a genuine, serious public health issue - not just because of the limitations it places on some people's free movement, but because people will excrete in the street if given no other option - "just wait" simply isn't always physically possible.

We used to have some but apparently they were so heavily used for drug abuse the council shut them.

That's what the council reckon. They were monitoring and found extensive cocaine traces.

Personally I think that's bullshit by the way, our uber Tory council justifying cutting funding for the loo.

I agree. Most people who take coke in toilets do it in nightclub toilets, for one thing.
But councils are always likely to blame beggars/drug addicts/gay people for the fact that they don't want to spend money on public facilities.