Bladder Tax - 40p charge toilet, Pay on entry, 4 Station Square, Whitby, North Yorkshire, England, UK, YO21 1DX
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Tony Smith / Alamy Stock PhotoImage ID:
2RCDXG8File size:
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5304 x 3648 px | 44.9 x 30.9 cm | 17.7 x 12.2 inches | 300dpiDate taken:
25 September 2022Location:
4 Station Square, Whitby, North Yorkshire, England, UK, YO21 1DXMore information:
More at https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/aug/01/public-toilets-council-cuts According to a report by the Royal Society for Public Health (RSPH) – appropriately titled Taking the P*** – a fifth of Britons don’t leave their home as often as they’d like because they know they’ll struggle to find facilities, a phenomenon known as “loo leash”. For those with medical conditions, this affects more than four in 10. Ever found yourself deliberately not drinking in case you get caught short? Over half the public intentionally dehydrate themselves for fear of not finding a loo, according to the report. By next year, 60% of government funding for local authority services will have vanished compared with 2010 The people must take to the urinals, conveniences and the cubicles, or what remains of them, because the right to pee is under threat. The decline of the public toilet – leaving us creeping into pubs and hoping to avoid the disapproving glare of the bartender – is just one symptom of the assault on the public realm. By next year, 60% of government funding for local authority services will have vanished compared with 2010. Toilets are not statutory services – that is, councils are not legally obliged to provide them – and so hundreds have been axed. The British Toilet Association tells me that up to half of public loos may have been closed over the last decade. In Cornwall, the council has stopped maintaining 94% of its toilets. Three in four Britons polled think there are not enough facilities within their communities. But why should we be resigned to this, legs firmly crossed, as a fact of life? Why is removing waste from our doorsteps regarded as an essential, universal service, but allowing us to remove waste from our bodies is not? The public realm has been subordinated to the whims of the market and profit for over a generation, and toilets are no exception. You’ll often need to spend considerably more than a penny to have a pee.