{"id":2399,"date":"2021-07-26T16:34:35","date_gmt":"2021-07-26T15:34:35","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.btaloos.co.uk\/?p=2399"},"modified":"2025-01-06T20:06:23","modified_gmt":"2025-01-06T20:06:23","slug":"improved-legislation-and-more-funding-needed","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.btaloos.co.uk\/?p=2399","title":{"rendered":"Improved Legislation and more funding needed"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

23 July 2021<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The British Toilet Association has called for improved legislation and more government funding to address the current “appalling” lack of public toilet provision.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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 the COVID-19 pandemic <\/a>has only made the situation worse.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Many public toilets have been locked down since the start of the pandemic due to a lack of cleaning, funding or any government guidance on how to get them fit for purpose, The British Toilet Association (BTA) said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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 COVID-19 transmission and leaving the local authorities to foot considerable clean-up costs, it added.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cAnyone suffering with an accessibility issue or those caring for someone who has <\/strong><\/em>limited mobility <\/em><\/strong><\/a>or a medical condition is socially excluded and potentially deemed prisoners in their own homes.”<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2013Raymond Martin<\/em><\/strong>
Managing Director, BTA<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

No Legal Requirement for Local Authorities to Provide Public Toilets<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

With no legal requirement in place to force local authorities to provide or run public toilets<\/a> then, the BTA believes the majority of councils across the UK do not allocate sufficient resources or funds to the provision of public toilets.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The BTA has been lobbying for action since the pandemic began, asking questions of Ministers and the PM, writing to Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government and has taken part in a Zoom meeting with Lord Stephen Greenhalgh, the Minister for Building Safety and Communities and other Members of the House of Lords but without an adequate response.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It is currently preparing to write again to Lord Greenhalgh and also to the new Health Secretary, the Rt Hon Sajid Javid.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The BTA is a not-for-profit organisation that campaigns for the highest possible standards of hygiene and provision in all \u201caway from home\u201d 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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

BTA Managing Director Raymond Martin said: \u201cWe 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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cAcross 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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThen 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 tackle and fight this continuing threat to our nation\u2019s daily existence.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cFrom the very first announcement of the arrival of COVID-19 the government has been repeatedly telling everyone to \u201cwash your hands\u201d but how much money has it allocated, spent or even committed to increasing sanitation and hygiene during a pandemic?  The answer is nothing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cHand 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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe 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 relief.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cCOVID is transmitted in human excrement and urine so forcing the public to use our open spaces to go to the toilet can only be a recipe for continued or increased transmission and incubation of this most deadly pathogen and any future variants.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Accessibility Issues<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cAnyone suffering with an accessibility issue or those caring for someone who has limited mobility <\/a>or a medical condition is socially excluded and potentially deemed prisoners in their own homes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cFootfall 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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe BTA has spent the last eighteen months primarily firefighting the lack of publicly accessible toilets across the UK but with very limited success without the support of this government.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt\u2019s 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.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Picture: a picture of a toilet<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Article written by Ella Tansley | Published 23 July 2021<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

23 July 2021 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 the COVID-19 pandemic has only made the<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":2400,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.btaloos.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2399"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.btaloos.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.btaloos.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.btaloos.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.btaloos.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2399"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/www.btaloos.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2399\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2488,"href":"http:\/\/www.btaloos.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2399\/revisions\/2488"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.btaloos.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/2400"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.btaloos.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2399"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.btaloos.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2399"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.btaloos.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2399"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}