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

[WhoopsINameChangedAgain]

On Saturday 27 September 2025, in a leafy suburb of Newcastle upon Tyne, one lone woman protested the recent decision to change the leisure centre single sex changing rooms into one mixed sex area with no changes to the changing cubicles.

Despite the peacefulness of the protest, and considerable positive engagement from service users who stopped to chat to her, the staff called the police.

Thankfully the officer was rightly not concerned and happy for her to continue her peaceful protest.

https://x.com/wrn_neandnyorks/status/1972197438363713594?s=46&t=A2fpFNgDRyXF2d6ye97wEA

Pics for those not on twitter; police officer can be seen through doorway behind her.

Adopted Geordie SinnerBoy.

I think they're breaking the law, but they would no doubt say they're not. Ultimately they need.to be forced to chamge.

Yes, cubicles off a common area. Cubicles ARE NOT suitable to prevent voyeurism/ filming and the toilet cubicles are also in the communal area.

Imagine you go to the loo and get.blood on your hands. You have to walk to the sinks in the communal mixed sex space to wash them.

@MrsM1ggins Agree. I was under the impression that for mixed sex toilet areas there has to be a sink in the toilet cubicle itself.

Yes there does

It seems strange to me that they got the toilets wrong. I haven't used the loos, so maybe they are universal? But if they are, why are there sinks just outside the toilet cubicles?

Will try to check tomorrow when I go in to see the manager.

Women need to keep up the pressure. Perverts LOVE mixed-sex changing rooms. Remember the two men who were jailed for being in possession of 6,000 images of women and girls taken in changing rooms? They could only do that because pools have given up protecting our single-sex space.

Seems they took note of this guys complaint about no men’s changing and just mixed and women’s ss space. That’s was 5 months ago.

So in response they got rid of the women’s 😳

heres his trip advisor comment and their response

@DrPrunesqualer if so, that's shocking and yet at the same time not particularly surprising.

Well done & thank you!

@MrsM1gginswell done

@MrsM1ggins thank you for doing this!

I’ve been going for years and latterly weekly swimming lessons for my son.

from memory they just gave the toilets in the women’s floor to ceiling height doors. The sinks are outside; i can’t remember if the one that is wider for wheel chair access has a sink in it or not. I think not as there’s a low sink next to the other sinks.

all the changing cubicles are the same as they were. Gaps beneath doors

They took out the left hand side of lockers, adding in about 4 new changing cubicles. Same as others, gap beneath the door and open top.

a few laminated signs up saying mobile phones are banned in the changing rooms. Never seen staff enforce that.

my son recently informed me he could see me sitting on the loo “your reflection on the wall (Perspex) through the crack at the side”

Are all changing rooms for swimming not mixed sex? I think every leisure centre or gym with a pool I've been to around here has just one big changing area with cubicles, I never really thought about it. Same location too. Haven point, all the everyone active leisure centres, the aquatic, waves x

Jesmond pool, just up the road, is still single sex

Most that are more recently built are planned as mixed, so they have cubicles that offer greater privacy then what you would find in a changing room that was designed and built to be single sex. Mix sex 'changing villages' also have separate toilet areas for each sex attached, whereas it sounds like this one just has one set of toilets, because it was only designed to be used by one sex.

That's the way they're all going thanks to Swim England and Sport England who suggest it in their design guidance. I FOId Sport England and they confirmed that they haven't risk assessed this guidance, but in their view it's not 'best practice' it's just a suggestion and nothing to do with them if it results in voyeurism, sexual assault etc.

Just had a sit down with the leisure centre manager. Was good of him to make the time. 🙂

I talked him through the objections, told him about Morgan/Dennis and also pointed out that the toilets are shocking. He now knows whst a menstrual cup is because I explained to him how a woman using the toilet would need to leave the cubicle and wash the bloody cup in the sink in front of the other patrons before returning to the cubicle to reinsert it.

You are a total hero @MrsM1ggins!

what was his response face like?

We've agreed that he will run our conversation and our objections up the chain and we will have a follow up meeting.

Told him about this thread and the one on X.

What a woman MrsM1ggins is!
Thank you so much xx💖

@MrsM1ggins
Thank you for doing this.
I hate those changing villages. There was one at a pool near me when I was a teenager. There used to be holes in the partitions where men had drilled in with keys (it was this crappy fake metal material). The holes were stuffed with gum or toilet paper, but as you changed the toilet paper would fall on to the benches and floor as the men on the other side pushed it through to enable them to watch you change.
When my friend and I wised up to this we would change together - one getting changed under then towel, the other keeping watch for the perverts. You would see their eyes, and when they got really desperate they just stuck their heads under the partition. This was a regular occurrence. When we mentioned it to pool staff they half heartedly looked for the men (who of course had gone) and shrugged it off.

This was decades ago, so when it was over it was over. Now those men would have cameras, can re watch the girls getting changed, and distribute the images and film to thousands on the internet. If a girl now suspects that someone has watched her, she knows that video could have been seen online by any man she deals with - at work, at the pub. It needs to be taken seriously.

The pool closed shortly after this and had a complete refit. Still has changing villages (mixed), you can't make holes in the partitions, but you can stick a camera underneath.

Great!

He may like to know that I don’t swim there any more since this change. I go to Jesmond. Part of it is due to having to book a time slot but the tipping point was the changing rooms.

I’d be interested to know if this is also why they changed it being open to the public during children’s swimming lessons; it used to be and I’d swim at the same time as my eldest’s lesson.

However, if there have been incidents of certain males timing their swims at the same time it would be a reason to. I’ve had experience of this as a teacher at other pools when taking school children swimming and it was well known about by staff, just no actual offence evidence.

(I only know about the Saturday sessions)

Oh look, a bloke who was found to have filmed at killingworth pool.

https://www.chroniclelive.co.uk/news/north-east-news/pool-pervert-set-leisure-centres-1420267

Here’s the waves one from last year:

https://www.chroniclelive.co.uk/news/north-east-news/images-released-after-report-voyeur-29042678