News / Public Toilets
Call for community loo review in Bristol
Scrutiny councillors have called for a review of the community toilet scheme, which was launched following the closure of public loos in Bristol earlier this year.
In January, Bristol City Council closed all of the city’s on-street public toilets, which resulted in the loss of 18 public conveniences.
The decision was lambasted by opposition councillors and campaigners, who argued that the closures would affect the most vulnerable including the elderly, children and people with mobility issues.
is needed now More than ever
In an attempt to mitigate the impact of the closures, the authority launched a ‘Community Toilet Scheme’ which calls on local businesses to open up their loos for free.
The council said the move towards a network of publicly-available loos provided by businesses, organisations and charities would save the council £400,000.
The toilets by the Clifton Suspension Bridge are among those still open. Photo by Theo Gittens
So far more than 32 venues across the city have signed up to the scheme and there are still 13 public toilets open across the city – most of which are within parks.
Now, nine months after the closures first came into force, members of the council’s Communities Scrutiny Commission have called for a review of the closures.
Commission chairman Gary Hopkins said he wanted to see evidence that showed whether the community toilet scheme was working during a meeting on Monday (September 10).
“What concerns me is that we seem to have big gaps between where there is public toilet provision and where there is not,” added Hopkins, a Lib Dem councillor for Knowle.
It has been previously reported that the use of public conveniences are not evenly spread across Bristol and some areas of the city are much better provided for than others.
The city centre has better toilet provision than many areas of Bristol. but the Bearpit facilities are among those that have closed
By far the best place to get caught needing the loo is the city centre. The BS1 area of Bristol has 12 public toilets available – a mixture of council-run conveniences and businesses signed up to the community toilet scheme.
But anyone who finds themselves in need of relief in the BS2, BS6, BS11 and BS13 areas have just one or no facilities available to them – and some of them only during set hours that the business is open.
Hopkins said he wanted a full list of all the public conveniences available across the city when the commission meets on January 14 next year.
He also said he wanted comments from the public and councillors to form part of the review.
Jo Sergeant, vice-chairman of the commission and Labour councillor, said she wanted to know what the short to medium term provision was for public toilets as well as what the council was planning long term.
“There are public toilet buildings across the city that are being considered for disposal,” she added.
The discussion about public toilets came about after transport campaigner David Redgewell claimed the “issues around public toilet provision were affecting Bristol’s £1.4 billion tourism industry”.
Kate Wilson is a local democracy reporter for Bristol.
Read more: Concerns closure of public toilets will hit most vulnerable
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