\n<\/p>\n
T<\/span>he first thing Raymond Martin looks for in a toilet, he says, is cleanliness. Does the tissue paper on the floor mean this public lavatory has failed his inspection? \u201cYou have to understand that it\u2019s a working toilet, it\u2019s now mid-afternoon \u2013 a few bits of tissue on the floor is neither here nor there,\u201d Martin says. \u201cIf there were cigarette packets, bottles on the floor \u2013 that I\u2019d be worried about.\u201d We\u2019re in Knutsford, Cheshire, and Martin is on a toilet-inspection tour of the north and west of the UK. He\u2019s just come from the Lake District and Blackpool. When we part ways in a couple of hours, he\u2019ll head on to Wales to inspect the public conveniences of Pembrokeshire.<\/p>\n Do people laugh when Martin, who is managing director of the British Toilet Association (BTA), tells them he does toilet inspections? They do, he says. \u201cBut then, immediately, they say, \u2018I\u2019ll tell you where I was and they had wonderful toilets \u2026\u2019.\u201d<\/p>\n Martin loves the job \u2013 it takes him all over the country. And he really, really loves loos. He turns 70 this year and has started thinking about who may run the BTA whenever he steps down. He is, he says, \u201ctrying to find someone who has the passion for toilets\u201d. But before then, Martin is on what he calls his quest. \u201cGod or whoever said, \u2018We need somebody to do this job.\u2019 And I went, \u2018All right, I\u2019ll give it a go.\u2019\u201d Martin wants everyone to be able to use clean, safe and accessible public loos. Rather than a nice-to-have \u201cconvenience\u201d, he sees toilets as an essential part of public infrastructure.<\/p>\n The BTA is a members\u2019 association, funded by companies including those that design and build public toilets, so it\u2019s clearly in their commercial interests to have more public conveniences \u2013 but it\u2019s in our interests too. Since 2000, Raymond says the UK has lost about 50% of its public toilets. The figure is closer to 35%, according to Jo-Anne Bichard and Gail Ramster, accessible design researchers and authors of the book Designing Inclusive Public Toilets: Wee The People. (They have also created a Toilet Map of the UK\u2019s public loos.)<\/p>\n <\/span>\u2018It\u2019s about helping people, health and wellbeing, equality\u2019 \u2026 Raymond Martin in his company car. <\/span> Photograph: Charles McQuillan\/The Guardian<\/p>\n A lack of toilets affects all of us, but especially those with disabilities, older people and those with chronic illness, including bowel and bladder problems. People have described not drinking enough (so as not to be caught short), soiling themselves in public, or not going out at all \u2013 the \u201curinary leash\u201d that keeps people trapped at home if they don\u2019t know if they\u2019ll be able to access a loo. \u201cIt\u2019s about sanitation and hygiene,\u201d says Martin about his passion for public loos. \u201cIt\u2019s about helping people, health and wellbeing, equality, and it\u2019s just about making things right.\u201d Does he dream about toilets? He laughs. \u201cYes, I have to admit it.\u201d<\/p>\n When the Con-Lib coalition government introduced austerity in 2010 and cut councils\u2019 budgets, one of the first things many of them did to save money was close public loos. Since the BTA was set up in 1999, it has been trying to get the government to take toilets seriously (it also campaigns on other issues, such as the provision of sanitary bins in male toilets, and keeping an eye on loo-related issues, including schools restricting access during lessons).<\/p>\n After the Covid pandemic, many of the toilets that were closed never reopened. When the levelling up and regeneration bill was announced, and a \u201ctoilet tsar\u201d was suggested to oversee public convenience provision, the Conservatives rejected it. \u201c[They said] nobody wants to be the Minister for Poo. Nobody wants to be the toilet minister.\u201d<\/p>\n Martin has more faith in the current government. Last year, he was invited to speak to Alex Norris, minister for building safety, fire and local growth. He took about 20 colleagues and partners, including representatives from disability groups and trade unions, to talk toilets \u2013 and he was back again three months ago. He hopes the government will make public loos a statutory requirement for councils (and provide the funding for it). \u201cThe government\u2019s very keen on safer, cleaner neighbourhoods, social inclusion and interaction, and rebuilding towns,\u201d says Martin. \u201cToilets are an absolutely essential part of this.\u201d Martin is confident for the first time in years that public loos will finally become obligatory.<\/p>\n <\/span>A closed public toilet in Avonmouth, Bristol. Over the course of a year, Martin will leave his home in Bangor, Northern Ireland, and visit about 600 toilets, including those in supermarkets and in pub chains such as Wetherspoon\u2019s, to check their condition, but also to give feedback on how they can be improved. This week, he will visit a random selection of nearly 50 public loos run by the company Danfo.<\/p>\n In one car park in Knutsford, there are three single toilets \u2013 \u201cunisex cubicles are the way to go\u201d, says Martin \u2013 including an accessible one, which we look at first. \u201cNumber one: how easy the door is to open,\u201d he says. During our afternoon together, I notice he often says \u201cnumber one\u201d, but doesn\u2019t always follow it up with a \u201cnumber two\u201d \u2013 but number ones, I suppose, are more common. He has a large number of checks to do, including the number of rails inside; that they\u2019re in the right position, and there\u2019s enough space for a wheelchair to turn. But the seat is about 2cm too low to be easily sat on by a wheelchair-user. \u201cWe\u2019ll make that recommendation to them.\u201d<\/p>\n A shelf would be useful, particularly for people changing a colostomy bag. Martin pulls the baby changing table down. \u201cYou\u2019re looking for stability,\u201d he says. \u201cAnd sides so the child can\u2019t roll off it. Somebody\u2019s been in here, look.\u201d There are strands of tobacco on the table \u2013 the sign, he says, of someone rolling a joint. Sometimes, people will use the changing table for lines of cocaine, he adds. \u201cThen you put a baby \u2026 It\u2019s something we have to be aware of.\u201d There is a sharps disposal hole, but cleaners still have to be aware that needles may have been hidden behind toilets. \u201cPrick injuries, putting your hand around the back of the toilet to clean it.\u201d<\/p>\n Working and clean and serviceable \u2026 that\u2019s my favourite kind of toilet<\/p>\n The built-in metal sink and dryer is in working order and virtually spotless, and there are two coat hooks: good. \u201cThe mirror is clean as a whistle. Lighting is good.\u201d He sniffs. \u201cNo odour. It\u2019s very hard to make this much better for a public toilet.\u201d He\u2019ll give it four stars \u2013 a grading system he has invented. \u201cI\u2019m trying to perfect it.\u201d What might have pushed that up to a five? Perhaps a sanitiser for the seat, he says, \u201cbecause you don\u2019t know whose bum\u2019s been on that last\u201d. And one of the handrails could be screwed in a bit tighter, he adds.<\/p>\n In the small cafe next door, over coffee, Martin explains one way councils could pay for public loos. \u201cYou have a council toilet, but you have a coffee shop on the back of it, so these two work in symbiosis,\u201d he says. \u201cThe rent from here will offset the cost of the toilets. You take a block of toilets, cut it in half, you put a shop in one side, and you put unisex cubicles in the other side. Around the country, we\u2019re now starting to see things like coffee shops, tourist information centres \u2026 I think in one place there\u2019s an art gallery.\u201d As well as the government making toilets an essential, and providing money, \u201cwe also need to think about these new ideas, and community groups [running loos]\u201d.<\/p>\n Martin can trace his interest in lavatories back to his time at school in the 60s, and a history teacher warning that one of the biggest threats to humanity was a pandemic, or antibiotic resistant germs. The importance of sanitation lodged in his mind, says Martin. As an adult, he went into sales, dealing in home appliances, then electronics, working his way up. But his life was about to collapse.<\/p>\n When Martin was 32, his wife died four days after giving birth to their second daughter. Years later, he discovered his wife had OTC deficiency, a rare genetic condition that affects how the body removes ammonia. (It also explained the earlier death, at two days old, of their first child.) \u201cThe doctors didn\u2019t even know at that time,\u201d he says. Martin was left with a one-and-a-half-year-old daughter, and a newborn to look after. \u201cThere were very difficult times for a lot of years,\u201d he says, but he adds that he had a lot of support \u2013 nannies, a good friend and his family.<\/p>\n <\/span>\u2018Toilets are about health and wellbeing, but they\u2019re also about the local economy.\u2019 <\/span> Photograph: Charles McQuillan\/The Guardian<\/p>\n When his daughters were children, Martin became even more focused on hygiene and cleanliness, he says. As a single father, taking the girls to the loo was difficult. \u201cI spent my time searching for toilets, and looking at toilets and going in and checking if they were all right to be used. The men\u2019s toilets were despicable, in most cases.\u201d He would often stand outside the women\u2019s loos, which were the only facilities to have baby changing tables, then choose his moment to ask if he could go inside. \u201cThe next thing would be [a woman would say]: \u2018Here, this bloke is going to change a baby\u2019s nappy. Do you see this?\u2019 I\u2019d have a crowd around me.\u201d This was 40 years ago, he says, when men were not really expected to do such things. Years later, he was, he says, \u201cone of the big drivers who got baby change tables in men\u2019s toilets, and we\u2019d like to see a lot more.\u201d<\/p>\n In the early 90s, Martin started working for the campaign organisation Keep Britain Tidy. While assessing the cleanliness of beaches for Blue Flag status, he became even more interested in lavatories. \u201cTo get a blue flag, you expected toilets for visitors and you had to look after them,\u201d he says. He became so recognised as a loo expert that he started working for the BTA in 2002, doing surveys for them at first, before taking over as managing director in 2014. It\u2019s a voluntary role, though he gets paid for the surveys and consultations.<\/p>\n In that time, Martin has watched public toilets go down the pan. He understands the pressures \u2013 it costs about \u00a315,000 a year to run a small block of toilets, he says \u2013 but says the money-saving was shortsighted as it meant town centres, and the businesses in them, started to suffer. \u201cToilets have a twin effect. Number one, it\u2019s about health and wellbeing. But they\u2019re also about the local economy.\u201d<\/p>\n If we want to have thriving town centres, we need public loos, he says. The schemes where councils partner with local businesses to open their toilets to the public only go so far. \u201cA shop opens at 9am, closes at 5pm. What do you do from 6am, when runners are out, dog walkers, postal workers, delivery drivers? What about the evening, when people want to go out? So you have to have council provision as well.\u201d Truckers and delivery drivers shouldn\u2019t have to urinate in bottles. \u201cWe know it happens \u2013 but it shouldn\u2019t happen in a modern society.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/span>More kaput commodes in Merthyr Tydfil, south Wales. <\/span> Photograph: Jeff Morgan 14\/Alamy<\/p>\n The public loos in Knutsford charge 30p. It\u2019s partly to pay towards the cost of upkeep, but it also reduces vandalism, says Martin. \u201cSomehow we\u2019ve got to get people to respect toilets. I don\u2019t think they realise when they\u2019re doing it, the effect [toilet closure is having] on older people, people with severe disabilities.\u201d Are people open to paying? \u201cNo, is the answer. We all expect free toilets. I actually think they should be free, but reality sets in, and costs have gone up and we\u2019ve got to fund them.\u201d<\/p>\n We go across town to visit another set of public loos, which look great to my untrained eye. \u201cNow, the criticism here is the white rails, because people with partial sight could have trouble seeing them,\u201d says Martin. They should have had a band of dark tape put on them, for visibility. The rails on the baby change table could be higher, and the sink could be lower, but otherwise, Martin is happy. Four stars!<\/p>\n In his chatty way, Martin has been talking toilets for hours, from the lavatories shown at the 1851 Great Exhibition to the new glass cubicles Japan has introduced for its public toilets, to his hope that the UK will host the World Toilet Summit next year. On his tours of the UK\u2019s toilets, are there ones that stick in his mind? Does he have a favourite? \u201cIf they\u2019re working and clean and serviceable,\u201d he says \u201cthat\u2019s my favourite kind of toilet.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The first thing Raymond Martin looks for in a toilet, he says, is cleanliness. Does the tissue paper on the floor mean this public lavatory has failed his inspection? \u201cYou have to understand that it\u2019s a working toilet, it\u2019s now mid-afternoon \u2013 a few bits of tissue on the floor is neither here nor there,\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":17234,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[51],"tags":[10365,841,1140,771,10366,1541,2509,4669,10364],"class_list":{"0":"post-17233","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-health","8":"tag-admit","9":"tag-britains","10":"tag-dream","11":"tag-improve","12":"tag-loos","13":"tag-man","14":"tag-mission","15":"tag-society","16":"tag-toilets"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17233","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=17233"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17233\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/17234"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=17233"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=17233"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=17233"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
<\/span> Photograph: Paul Hennell\/Alamy<\/p>\n