Category Archives: Featured Articles
New Corporate Champion
The Managaing Director and the Management Advisory Board are delighted to anounce our new agreement & partnership with Initial Washrooms who are one of the major leading suppliers of quality toilet, bathroom and washroom products and services across the UK and Ireland.
Washroom Hygiene Services
As part of the Rentokil Initial group, we pride ourselves on being a global company with a local feel. Initial Washroom Hygiene is a British-owned company with 120 years of experience in the service industry. We have a reputation for innovation, strong customer relationships, and trust in the UK market.
We are one of the leading washroom hygiene companies in the UK, offering a comprehensive range of products and services that will enhance washroom facilities and ensure compliance with key legislation.
Our core washroom hygiene services include soap dispensers, sanitising products, hand dryers, sanitary bins, air fresheners and floor mats.
See the exciting range of modern bathroom provision
Why Choose Initial Washroom Hygiene?
- Local and Expert Response – You can trust us to provide your business with effective and fully compliant hygiene services tailored to your specific needs. Our highly trained, RSPH accredited, local Customer Delivery Representatives are dedicated to supporting you with expert solutions – no matter where you are situated in the UK. We have 21 branches covering the whole of the UK. Proud to deliver great customer service, we are rated excellent on Trustpilot with over 13,000 reviews.
- Innovative Solutions – Combining our expert understanding of human behaviour and how germs spread to bring new innovations to the market, such as the Initial AIRTrinity, revolutionary air technology that has been designed specifically for the washroom. We believe everyone is entitled to dignity in the washroom regardless of their age, gender or need.
- Technology – Our product range features No Touch technology and intelligent connected devices that provide alerts for refill requirements, ensuring optimal hygiene maintenance. Our servicing is integrated with technology to offer full traceability of service delivery to provide the best customer experience possible.
- Health & Safety – With a ‘world class’ Health & Safety record, we prioritise the wellbeing of your staff and visitors.
- Sustainability – We are dedicated to delivering sustainable operational solutions and working towards zero customer waste to landfill across our entire portfolio which we’ve already achieved in England and Wales
Legalise Loos
The BTA has officially launched it’s Legalise Loos campaign in which it hopes to encourge National government to recognise the problems of poor toilet provision and the lack of decent clean facilities across the country. By promoting a series of strong images and messages through the media and our marketing materials we are aiming to get acknowledgement form the relevant departmenst that there is a national problem with the provision and quantity of publicly accessible toilets in our towns and villages,
Some of the messages we have been using to promote the campaign
With over 40% of all publicly accessible toilets lost in the last 10-15 years it has become ever more difficult to find a public loo when you need one. Additionally, those that remain are under ever increasing threat of closure due to the lack of any recognisable or significant funding from Westminster. Councils across the country are, all to often, relying on “discretionary” monies left over from the mandatory services they provide to update or make necesaary repairs to their stock.
The BTA is repeatedly facing both media and public complaints regarding the often appalling conditions that users face when trying to find relief. With so many public toilets being unmanned or unsupervised the growing spectrwe that is anti-social beheaviour or misuse looms large and this brings increased costs that councils have to find.
But the fact remains that publicly accessible toilets are an essential and vital piece of the local infrastructure and they play a very significant role on attracting footfall and increased revenues into local neighbourhoods and shops. Where we encounter well maintained and fully functioning facilities it is no suprise to find that shops and local amenities are thriving. All the major shopping centres and leiusure complex’s have excellent facilities because they understand the value of the customer experience. If we want to regenerate our high streets and local neighbourhoods then we have to invest in decent clean public toilets to: not only bring the users into the area – but make sure they can spend time shopping and enjoying the shops, parks and family amenities that councils spend so much time and money installing to develop healthy communities and social inclusion.
Pride in Place
On 25th September the Secretary of State for MHCLG the Rt Hon Steve Reed issued a governemnt policy paper called “Pride in Place” that set out the whole of governments desire for communities to take back control of their local environments. Backed by a record investment of around £5billion over the next 10 years that was announced by the Prime Minister.
Section 99: of the Policy paper states: Recognising that town centres must be accessible to everyone in our communities, we must address the barriers that poor toilet provision can represent. We have therefore included the provision of public toilets as a pre-approved intervention for areas receiving the Priode in Place funding.
In his foreward he remarked: “Make no mistake that this is a pilot in a new way of governing, and it dwarfs anything that has come before. The party, founded a hundred years ago to serve working families, is today putting working families in control of their lives and their neighbourhoods. This is our alternative to the forces trying to pull us apart. This is our answer to those who feel silenced, ignored and forgotten”
The Rt Hon Steve Reed OBE MP
Secretary of State for the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government
After over 25 years of campaigning and lobbying successive governments the BTA greatly welcomes the announcement and has agreed with the department to work closely with Ministers and Councils to see the inception and roll out of this wonderful new initiative. Our political team are already gathering support from Ministers and Memebers of the Lords to add their support to the Mayors and all the Councils who will aail themselves of this new programme and associated funding.
Improved Legislation and more funding needed
8th June 2026
The British Toilet Association has called for improved legislation and more government funding to address the current “appalling” lack of public toilet provision.
Public toilets are in “crisis” and rapidly vanishing, the body said, with many of those that remain displaying totally unacceptable levels of cleanliness and hygiene and our state panic and withdrawl during the previous pandemic has only made the situation worse.
Many public toilets have been locked down since the end of the pandemic due to a lack of funding, proper management, cleaning or any government guidance on how to get them hygienically fit for purpose.
The public was being forced to go to the toilet in streets, beaches, open spaces and beauty spots, causing street fouling figures to escalate, aggravating the risk of transmission and leaving the local authorities to foot considerable clean-up costs, it added.
The effects of the LOO LEASH
“Anyone suffering with an accessibility issue or those caring for someone who has limited mobility or a medical condition is socially excluded and potentially deemed prisoners in their own homes.”
–Raymond Martin
Managing Director, BTA
No Legal Requirement for Local Authorities to Provide Public Toilets
With no legal requirement in place to support or even force local authorities to provide publicly accessible toilets then, the BTA firmly believes that the majority of councils across the UK can not allocate sufficient resources or funds to the provision of public toilets.
It is calling for the government to make sanitation and hygiene a major priority and support local authorities to stop the closures, open new facilities and establish a new set of standards of hygiene and cleanliness.
The BTA has been lobbying for action since the pandemic began, asking questions of Ministers and the PM and attending meetings with the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government. We have spoken directly to the previous Secretary of State for MHCLG Alex Norris MP and has taken part in a series of Zoom meeting with other Members of the House of Commons and the Lords and has been encouraged to find a willing audience who understand the problems and priorities and are currently raising the questions in Parliament and at council levels.
We are in the process of writing again to the Rt Hon. Steve Reed to ask him to meet with the BTA to progress the previous proposals and discussions.
The BTA is a not-for-profit organisation that campaigns for the highest possible standards of hygiene and provision in all “away from home” toilet facilities across the UK. It understands that over a third of the population need to visit a toilet on an urgent basis, often at very short notice.
BTA Managing Director Raymond Martin said: “We are appalled at the total lack of funding over many years and extremely concerned at the closures and unprecedented low levels of public toilet facilities before, during and going into the future. This is now a crisis.
“Across our beautiful country, that was once the envy of the world because of its sanitation systems and hygiene controls, those responsible have allowed us to fall so far from the standards our forefathers achieved.
“Then along comes one of the deadliest pathogens for many generations and unbelievably our ministers and their government colleagues cannot see the need or make available any primary funding to make sure that our public toilet providers and cleaning operatives are ready, skilled and prepared to tackle and fight any threat to our nation’s daily existence.
“Hand washing materials cost money, hot water costs money, cleaning materials and staff cost have to be factored in, as well as the return to an acceptable level of provision.
“The lack of public toilet provision leaves families with young children, business travellers, drivers delivering our daily essentials across the country, staycationers, day-trippers those on longer holiday breaks, older persons wanting to visit family and many more people wondering when they might find comfort, convenience and relief.
Accessibility Issues
“Anyone suffering with an accessibility issue or those caring for someone who has limited mobility or a medical condition is socially excluded and potentially deemed prisoners in their own homes.
“Footfall in shops and many high streets continues to remain low as the lack of decent toilet facilities is driving shoppers away to out of town superstores, leaving the villages and town shops with diminishing revenues and the constant threat of closure.
“The BTA has spent many years primarily firefighting the lack of publicly accessible toilets across the UK but with very limited success without the support of this government.
“It’s time that this government made sanitation and hygiene a major priority and supported the local authorities to stop the closures of public toilets, restore standards and tackle this pandemic in our public buildings and spaces.”
