Gender Neutral Public Toilets in Bognor Regis

[Musomama1]

Hi,

I just wanted to get some advice, some dodgy public toilets near me are just about to get dodgier.

I found out this information from a doorstep question download for the Respect My Sex campaign. My local council, Arun District Council are doing a much needed referbishment but altering it to gender-neutral.

Now I think this discriminates against women. What do I do? Where do I start in opposing this? I've emailed all the town councillors and made contact with a local women's centre to raise awareness.

Thanks in advance.

What does the signage say and depict?
I've seen so many confusing signs recently. They never say unisex as that wouldn't appease men TW who want validation. It's generally mixed gender with a stick man and woman, plus a cubicle with a urinal for men. The latter just marked men with a male stickman. Almost like men can just be, you know, men.

It's a complete joke!

It depends. Local to us they put in a row of individual loos, each with their own full length door, sink and dryer. The doors open direct to the outdoors so there's 0 opportunity for people to lurk.
I think, before the change, they were having issues with cottaging and drugtaking. It does mean that even if people are up to no good in Cubicle A you can still use Cubicle B or C with no problems at all.
Which will be welcomed by all... My OH has (not once but twice!) come out of other local loos complaining that he could hear people having sex in there.

If the plans are on those lines, the main problem will be the old one of men pissing on the floor, but you do get the upside of women having access to all the bogs, not just those in the ladies (anyone who has queued while the men waltz in and out of the gents knows!!!).

If it's another arrangement though, particularly one where you can't see who is in the loos before you go in... raise concerns vigorously and don't let them fob you off!

i think I would ask them to confirm that all cubicles will be including hand wash facilities and sanitary disposal bins as well as having full length doors and walls. So they can cater for users of tampons, pads and menstrual cups.

Our local beach has gender neutral loos but they open straight onto the promenade, sink etc is within the cubicle. 2 cubicles are larger for wheelchairs and with pull downs baby change and they are currently building a changing places toilet for those with higher needs

OP use the word mixed sex, because that is the proposal. A change from single sex provision to a mixed sex provision.
Asking for the documentation around the decision and planning may not change the outcome of the current project but may force a rethink of future projects.

FOJN
there is also a separate room with urinals for men that don't need or want sitting facilities.

That's direct discrimination as extra taxpayers money has been spent on the provision of male only services at the expense of female inclusive services.
There is the capital investment in the land allocation and build cost plus the ongoing maintance costs to provide the service. Women only "benefit" if a male decides he gains a benefit in using the male only service (male time saved in not having to hold and que is ignored)

I am not suprised that the other toilets were not designed to be disabled friendly as my experience has been that in limited space provision there is a small mens but male and disabled is normally shoehorned into the "women's, disable and baby unit".

Dinosauria perving via cameras appear to be a crime predominately committed by males against females. While an offender will seek to transgress allowing unquestionable free access to a space assists the offender in providing more oppertunites.

SolasAnla
That's direct discrimination as extra taxpayers money has been spent on the provision of male only services at the expense of female inclusive services.

Would the council be obliged to alter the provision or would someone have to sue?

out of interest is this by Morrisons by any chance?!

@Musomama1
Not a million miles away from you in a woke seaside city (not Brighton) . Would be up for coming through for some "decorating" if you fancy it ?😀

My bad, it is the Morrisons one. The floorplan is as below, so there's a shared walk-in which I would definitely not want to use at night, but otherwise it's designed with a wider opening and not shut in. How wide it is and how close for comfort you'll be with men going in and out of the bog remains to be seen.

It would be better if they simply opened out into the street as separate cubicles. Or just updated what they had. Yes it's mixed sex isn't it, they used this term a few years back, gender neutral is obviously the IC (ideologically correct) term.

@Cheekymaw yes I'm up for talking with some GC local ladies but I'm still thinking about this floorplan...

They are going to get really filthy very quickly if the door is down to the ground. How’s the cleaner with mop and bucket going to clean behind the doors? They are going to have to shut themselves in each loo with their mop and bucket. Is that a tiny sink next to each loo? Presumably that’s where women lean over to put sanitary waste so that will be pushed up on the inside on the door too.
Both the enlarged and ambulance cubicle doors open outwards onto people, pushchairs etc.
Look up drugs and public toilets and you’ll find out the problem with doors to the ground. Someone was found in a supermarket near me - they had been dead overnight.
How’s the ventilation? There’s going to be some interesting smells coming out of those toilets into the supermarket. Get a few pushchairs/trollies in the middle and you’ve jammed everything up as there isn’t a bare wall to put your trolley/pushchair against.

oops added the tiny sink line inbetween 2 sentences and the paragraph doesn’t make sense - I meant the sanitary bin will be behind the door

Arun District Council is a Tory council? I would always write to the local political branch of whoever is the ruling group and start a petition if you are not happy about a decision, it usually takes relatively little to make a bit of noise.

Is there a sink and period bin in each cubicle, I can't tell from the diagram, there is a rectangle but that looks like a cistern? Also I thought to be called unisex the door had to open onto a public place. These open into a semi enclosed space.

They have mixed sex toilets on the prom in Lyme Regis. And this was in summer 2019. Not separate rooms but the usual line of cubicles facing a row of sinks in one big room. I didn't like it at all.

The new stalls are much shallower with the increased space behind for cistern maintenance and the wider vestibule. Is there room for a woman with small children to take them in the cubicle with her? In a shared facility where a child finishing/exiting sooner could be pulled into a neighbouring cubicle, she cannot risk splitting the children between cubicles while she goes into one on her own. Not a great layout IMO. Where does your pram with all your shopping go when you are in a poky cubicle?

Did a person with a penis designed the new layout (one who never washes his hands either 🤢 )?
Or should I assume the square with the dot is some type of sink, soap store and blow dry unit? So there is water on the floor of every unit. And the basin needs to be at least as wide as a domestic cistern to be functional.

In the old there are
Mens 3 toilets plus 2/3 urinals spaces
Womens 6 toilets
Disabled* 1
Say 12 spaces

*Note the male space was not used in that design.

New layout there are 11 units, wheelchair access is doubled but at the back and is for anybody to use.
So overall one space less in provision.

So where are the sanitary bins placed in these mixed sex units?
Notice the first baby change has none the second is at the square with the dots.

The 2 baby units have the same measurements as the other units on that side?

The ambulance unit has a hand rail on both sides and a sink unit on one too? Where will the rail actually be placed?

The service area is doubled. If the left side is fully open to the staff there is a risk of lazy usage allowing for a build up of stored material behind the toilet units.

Is it the Hotham Park or Morrisons loos? Lots of women use the Hotham Park loos at Park Run each Saturday, lots of them are confident in expressing their opinions. Plus the dog walking group that meet up by the Alice in Wonderland statue.

@LizziesTwin

It's the toilets near Morrison's and Little Piggies (just underlining that for fellow locals!). Thank you, that's good to know, I thought it was Hotham Park at first, but no. I'd miss the absolutely first-rate chav graffitti truth be told.

@SolasAnla so the baby change units in the normal loos are useless as you have to leave your buggy outside the building. I'd use the accessible toilets as they are not strictly disabled but a. they are right at the back rather than the front, and b. will be a druggies paradise (we have a LOT of drug using in Bognor Town Centre which I think our town councillors mentioned in reference to this design).

I live in a seaside town and ours have been changed like this. Proper brick built with heavy door and sink and changing facilities for a baby. They are so much better than the old blocks. If they are just relabelling the old toilet blocks as mixed sex then that is dodgy, they are dodgy enough as single sex.

As to a previous poster saying the toilets are disgusting with piss everywhere, the last time I used one of the toilets in my town the disgusting thing was a soiled sanitary towel lying on the floor in the middle of the room. No piss to be seen or smelt, the toilets were clean otherwise.

Yes we have some like this where I live, and I agree that they are much better, they are large self contained units where you can fit a buggy and kids into, and they open up into the street. There are some in a park known for drug using but they have a security alert if a user has been in the toilet for a suspect time and I know they are at least monitored every day - you can't stamp out drug using completely but at least they try.

Sorry hadn't seen your update. Opening onto a public place is definitely the way they should do it, I can see quite a few have facilities like in my town and honestly they are an improvement but walking into a secluded area first would be off putting.

The downside to ours is the number of loos has decreased as the new toilets are big enough for a wheelchair and all have loo, sink, sanitary bin, baby change unit so in the same space you probably have half the number of units which has been fine for the last few months but might be challenging in the summer with lots of visitors.

We also have drug user issues (most seaside towns seem to) and walking into the self contained unit is so much safer than walking into the old block, not knowing who is lurking in the cubicles which weren't exactly very private with gaps at the top and bottom and the doors and locks weren't strong.

Can you approach your councillor with this as an improvement? I think being positive about improvements but making a suggestion to make them safer is going to get more consideration than just saying you don't like mixed sex if you see what I mean.

Is it the same local authority? Mad if they got it right in one place and then muck it up in another. I wonder if they are going for a cheaper option without thinking it through?

I just asked my DH (he's disabled so spends longer in the loo than I do) and he says there is some sort of alert thing in ours if you are in there too long, that does make him a bit uncomfortable as his mobility is bad and things take him a while but I said we need to investigate the timings as it might not be as bad as he thinks.

I hope you can get them to see sense, it is such a wasted opportunity when they could really be improving things.

Just realised re drug use that we used to have special blue lights in our public loos to discourage drug use (I think it is to do with veins not being visible for injections) but they have all gone. Not sure why, maybe they didn't work.

If the Council provided the provision they are of the opinion that it's ok.

It may be that there was careful consideration put into the decision, it may be that the designer reshuffled what was there without a lot of consideration of the overall objective of mixed sex provision. Either way the department head signs off, and elected body votes and money has been spent.

The first issue would be getting them to admit that their process was discriminatory. Remember the London Council which did a report which basically decided that the photo op of a coloured crossing outweighed the risk of harm to its users? Its not a good career enhancer to admit to casual sexism.

Off topic but I am so puzzled. Went into town today, DH had to use our nice new loos. As I said up thread he takes his time as he is disabled so there I am loitering outside the loos. As I waited there were at least 8 men going into the loos and reappearing, no women. Not even one. Normally women's loos seem busier than mens. I couldn't figure it out.

Are women avoiding the loos?
Are local women equipped with stronger bladders than the national average?
Are local men all suffering with bladder problems?
Are the loos the site of some nefarious dealings?

I left none the wiser when DH reappeared.