Well done, the Greens. If credit is due anywhere for the inclusion of £3 million in the Mayor’s budget for public lavatories at Tube stations, it should go to Caroline Russell. She’s the leader of the Greens in the London Assembly, and she’s been banging on about this for years. In fact she was hoping for £20 million, but you have to start somewhere. Mind you, I could have done without the lavatory humour in the press release... “a huge relief for Londoners”. Yes, yes, very funny.
Before you even say it, let’s make the point at the outset that quite a sizeable chunk of that budget should be allocated for maintenance. Lavatories are only as good as their cleanliness; I’d pay cleaners a premium for keeping them clean, and for mopping up regularly. In fact, I’d really like those at the big interchanges manned by actual people. And I’d like one for each sex please. No offence, but sharing loos with men in public places would be too beastly.
Lavatories are only as good as their cleanliness; I’d pay cleaners a premium for keeping them clean
But it’s possible for this to work. On Japan’s underground, nice clean lavatories are a given. And not having them is a real problem for many travellers, chiefly the old, and chiefly women. During the pandemic, when everywhere was closed, women were restrained in their movements by what’s called the urinary leash, whereby you can only go as far as proximity to a loo allows.
There are desperately few public lavatories in London, not even the forbidding ones that clean themselves. In 2000, there were just over 6,000 public loos in London; in 2021 there were fewer than 4,000 and the trajectory is down. Yet there are more of us than ever and every one of us needs a toilet.
Right now, we piggyback off the retail sector plus pubs — the toilets in M&S are popular, those in McDonald’s are probably the most widely used and when I’m in Piccadilly I find the ones at Fortnum’s rather nice. But it’s not really fair, is it?
The reality is that we need to spend more (I’m avoiding the obvious joke) on what are not just public conveniences but public necessities. But for now, loos on the Tube are a good start.
Melanie McDonagh is an Evening Standard columnist
