Category Archives: Featured Articles

BOYS need BINS

We are currently working closely with a number of organisations on developing a campaign to encourage government to devise a legal requirement for the inclusion of sanitary bins in Mens Toilets.

Over 2 Million men across the UK may have an urgent need to visit the toilet to remove or replace a stoma or incontinence product. Until now the soiled unit would have been disposed of in a Litter bin (if provided) or they may be forced to carry the used item away from the toilet perhaps to home.

Female toilets have always been well provisioned with sanitary bins in nearly every cubicle to cater for the disposal of towels & pads.

In recent months we have joined forces with Prostate Cancer UK and together we are gathering research and evidence to support our lobbying of national government to make a change in the current legislation to make it compulsory for providers to address the needs of all males who suffer with the problems of proper disposal.

A nationwide email survey has been distributed by supporting organisations to all their members and major organisations providing public toilets. These results will help us to try and understand the extent of the problems being faced by both the users and the providers.

WE NEED YOUR HELP !

The BTA are supporting the All Party Parliamentary Group for Bladder
and Bowel Continence Care’s campaign called Boys need Bins. The campaign aims to raise awareness of male incontinence and examine what facilities currently exist for incontinent men. We’ve partnered with
other national charities/associations to help achieve this: 

  • British Toilet Association 
  • Bladder Health UK 
  • International Longevity Centre (ILC) 
  • Men’s Health Forum 
  • Prostate Cancer UK
  • Tackle Prostate Cancer  
  • Truckers Toilet UK 

 
How you can help  
We’d like to hear from those responsible for the hygiene provisions in your toilet facilities, to get an
understanding of the current need for male hygiene bins.  If this isn’t you, please forward this email on to
the most relevant person in your organisation.  
Our 5-minute survey is completely anonymous and asks for no personal details, so please share as much
detail as you want. There are no right or wrong answers. 

https://project.tolunastart.com/tqsruntime/main?surveyData=ewqEMryCmi3LgTze45dHLMZCvYremf0kCcxST2LGWp2oe+/cAaUPfZeF1+qBMT9s
 
Your feedback will help us start conversations with the Government and key decision makers who can
create a positive change for men affected by incontinence. 
The deadline for submission is Friday 26 May 2023.  
If you have any questions about the survey, need support with completing it, or want more information on
this topic more generally, please contact campaigns@prostatecanceruk.org 
 
With our thanks and best wishes,

Raymond

HAPPY NEW YEAR

Sending all our Members, Colleagues and Friends our warmest and very special wishes for the new year ahead. Thank you for your contiinued support of the British Toilet Asociations. Congratulations on campaigning and lobbying for the maintenance and improving standards in all of our “away from home” publicly accessible toilets.

With the new year – comes new hope that the government and the new toilet Commissioner will set out a corporate strategy and plan to redress the serious decline in the number of acceptable public facilities; and that we will see a considerable investment and improvement in the levels of provision and hygiene for all users.

The BTA will continue to partner and offer our full support to organisations and charities who are working with individuals and groups who have a wide range of Accessibility needs and particuarly those related to toileting.

On behalf of the Board of Directors and myself – we wish you all a happy healthy and prosperous 2025.

Raymond Boyd Martin

Managing Director for the
British Toilet Association Limited

New Bill for Public Toilets moves to the Lords

In October of 2022 a “Levelling Up and Regeneration” Bill was introduced into Parliament by Ministers that will address a number of issues that the country facres ciming out of Covid and redressing the decline in local services and planning. The Bill has passed through the Commons and is now being read and debated in the House of Lords. It is hoped that the Bill could become an ACT of Parliament before Easter 2023.

It is with great delight that The BTA can report to all our Members Colleagues and Friends that within this Bill is a section specifically relating to much of our unrelenting work and ethos over the last twenty years.

Clauses 57, 58 and 59 refer directly to the appointment of a Toilet Commissioner whose priority will be to access the provision and need for public toilets throughout England and put in place a National Strategy for Local Authorities to follow – to devisie a Toilet Plan for each council area.

Working with an Independant Panel of advisors the commissioner will have to report to the Secretary of State for the Dept of Levelling Up and funding should become available for LA’s to enact some new developments.

The BTA will, of course, be offering oits full support to the Commissioner ,the government and Local Authorities in assembling and completing these tasks within the given timeframe. However, it is hoped that this is an exciting begining of a more sustained stategy for the future toilet provision across all the nations.

The following is an extract from the Hansard Report

New Clause 57

Review of England’s public conveniences

“(1) The Secretary of State must, within 6 months of the day on which this Act is passed, appoint commissioners to consider the level of need for public conveniences in England and the extent to which current provision matches that need.

(2) The Secretary of State must publish the report of the Commissioners before the end of the period of 12 months beginning with the day of their appointment.”

New clause 58—Public convenience plans—

“(1) Each tier 2 local authority in England must produce a Public Convenience Plan for their authority.

(2) A plan under this section must be formulated in consultation with local partners and the public.

(3) Such a plan much consider—

(a) the current level of public convenience provision,

(b) the current level of demand for such conveniences,

(c) what gaps there are in provision, and

(d) the needs of communities with protected characteristics under the Equality Act 2010.

(4) Central government must provide funding to local authorities to cover the costs of this new responsibility.”

New clause 59
Business rate relief scheme for business making toilets publicly available—

“The Secretary of State must by regulations make provision for a scheme under which if a business liable to business rates permits non-customers to use their toilets as a public convenience, the area of the premises containing the toilets is discounted from the calculation of the premises’ overall rateable value.”

In 2016 a BBC report highlighted that local authorities had closed one in seven public toilets between 2010 and 2013. The report identified 10 areas in England and Wales with no council-run toilets at all.
By 2018, the follow-up report found that the number of areas without any public conveniences had increased to 37. That is a trend likely to accelerate with the pressures on local authorities.

It has led to closures or transfers to perhaps voluntary groups or charities. The good will engendered in that is a welcome thing, but it means that accountability for that essential social infrastructure has been lost. We have to be clear about this. I do not think public toilets are a “nice to have”.

Lack of adequate facilities disproportionately affects all sorts of groups, including people who work outdoors, people with ill health or disability, the elderly and the homeless. Such essential facilities can make the difference between being able to confidently leave the house or not.

2025 The Dawn of a New Era

To All our Members, Partners, Friends and Colleagues we send you our Warmest Wishes for a vibrant and successful year ahead.

“I truely believe our new political campaign is gaining great traction and if we all work together we can make 2025 a year of renewed hope. Since its inception in 1851 the public toilet has risen and fallen in public conciousness many times. We once were the envy of all nations and our hygiene standards were exemplorary. But how they have diminished in the last 20 years – to the point of this country closing over 60% of its publicly accessible toilets and allowing the remaining units to fall into such dire repair and poor levels of cleanliness and hygiene. If Covid taught us anything it should have been to raise aour standards of cleanliness, hygiene and provision to combat the increasig threat of disease and transmission of germs. We need to renew our ight to decent clean sanitation and hygiene in readiness for the next pandemic.

The New Labour government is currently extremely interested in engaging with the BTA and hopes are high for a future public toilet strategy and a close working agreement. Also we look forward to working closely with many charities, organisations and individuals to help raise the standards of all “away from home” toilets, washrooms and bathroomSince the launch in 1851 s across the UK & Ireland”

Raymond Boyd Martin
Managing Director