No loos!

For information look up Perth and Kinross Council. The Council offer a number of free to use public toilets through partnerships with local service providers such as hotels, pubs and public buildings. This service is known as the Perth and Kinross Comfort Scheme. These facilities are available for public use at no cost, regardless of whether or not they are a customer.

The thing with community toilet schemes which are becoming more popular is that they need regular checks. Some businesses in the scheme close yet signage remains. Not all toilets in the scheme are suitable for everyone either. Councils seem to think they can establish a scheme and then leave it alone - which they shouldn't.

Toilets are not a luxury - they're a necessity for us all and some need to use one more often than others. We don't get food for free so sadly I think the time has come to pay for toilets, especially if this keeps them clean and well stocked.

Some places now have campaigners to are taking over the local loos as a community asset transfer.

Perhaps we should liaise with AGE UK to work on a campaign to halt closures? But is Gransnet a campaigning group????

I can't tell you how much I agree with goldengirl. Going to a park when you are fairly sure that you will need the loo is awful & distressing and the only way around this is not to go to whichever park it is. But, the knock on effect of this could be that councils say the park is then not used enough and take all our green spaces away altogether, not something that any of us would want. We are all potentially in a catch 22 situation with loos/parks now?! What does anyone else think about this? Personally I believe that toilets are a necessity and a basic right...

It is expensive for councils to provide toilets and maintain them. Perhaps if we went back to 'spending a penny (or 5p) it might help to keep them clean? The money has to come from somewhere and if you are desperate 5p is not a lot to ask is it?

Don't like going to public loos myself but sometimes you just have to. We usually find a supermarket that has them or a café because we know they will be clean.

There was an uproar in Alloa when the toilets closed and eventually they were re opened. But it's so hard to find one when u need it! I find shops like Aldi etc have discrete loos just beside the front doors, but many a time I've to buy a cuppa in order to go to a cafe toilet. I guess it's the Money aspect , the vandalism, and the public suffer! I would like every council to provide a local loo guide!

Hi mags1234. My local council ELindsey does provide a list of the toilets that they look after with addresses, opening times (summer/winter) etc. Very helpful and book marked on my computer!

It's not good is it? When DH and I used to go cycling (often in the middle of nowhere) we often had to go behind a convenient hedge at the boundary of a field. You could tell by the collection of scrunched up tissues that many others had had the same idea.

In the long run like many other cost cutting measures it costs more.

Loss of social space for people causes loneliness and depression which the NHS goes on about but yet there is no drive towards having all those things that make life possible for the less able, bus conductors, public lavs with attendants, proper benches for a rest.......we could be employing people and making life better for everyone instead of which we are short sighted and plump for cut backs.

People like Esther rantzen get on my nerves going on about this phone call once a week as if that is the panacea for loneliness, people need to get out more and be part of life, not stuck in waiting for a stranger to call.

I find getting ut so difficult traffic lights do not stop for long enough ............it is so easy to fix and all ages could benefit.

I have worked in Hospice shops where even people with special passes due to bowel disorders have been refused the toilet facilities.

Maggiemaybe You were lucky to find a clean loo in M&S. We were shopping in Chichester yesterday and had a snack and coffee in Marks. The loos were disgusting -- no paper apart from the soiled tissue on the floor--and yes there was a queue. In the Hedge End store a couple of weeks ago I sat down in a fitting room cubicle to take my shoes off and saw mounds of dust and fluff under the seat. That cannot be blamed on customers. I hope they are not cutting back on cleaning in the café.

We're trying to get a loo that's been closed for years to reopen in our (urban) village in the Black Country, for all the reasons on this thread. You wouldn't belieeeve the flak the local council has put up about it. We've even found a cleaner, fgs! And we have Lottery funding, so little or no cost to the council budgets. Gah!

Toilet ap ????

DH has a card from the IBS society explaining that he has a medical condition which means he sometimes needs a loo quickly and could he use theirs. Up to now he's never been turned down. He also has a radar key but some places (e.g. Bridlington)lock them with a second lock in the evening so you can't even use them.

RADAR keys are even available from Argos these days - no problem to get hold of one.

'Yours' magazine ran a campaign recently about keeping toilets open with some success.
Sorry not able to give the link but it can be Goggled.

Lots of public loos were closed to stop them being used by drug dealers and "other undesireables". I agree it's just making other areas in a park worse, when you have to go, you have to go.
Maybe it's time we all started on our local councils and pushed the health & safety and environmental arguments. Maybe we should ask them to provide the human equivalent of a doggy poo bag...

Radar keys are available from Amazon and cost around £2. I bought one last year for DH when he was having prostate problems.

I would happily pay 20/50p to use a clean loo anywhere in a public place when out for a day or even a few hours. It is the difference between going out or not and surely affects consumer spending and tourism.

Of course it's no use having a Radar key if there are no loos where you could use it!

I think a lot of people would be prepared to spend 10p or 20p. The only pay loos tend to be those horrible automated things which gave the impression we don't want to pay rather than we don't want to use those particular loos.

Public loos just need an attendant - or if in a park the park needs an old-style park-keeper who checks the loos on each lap round the park to see no one is abusing them. We need fewer unemployed too, so it would be win/win