British Toilet Association calls for public toilets to be protected as Kent councils reveal how many they have opened and closed

People may have to be prepared to spend money to spend a penny, suggests a charity, which says increased crime and overstretched council budgets are putting public toilets at risk.

Blighted by vandalism, anti-social behaviour and a lack of cash – the British Toilet Association says the issue has become a national crisis with few councils able to adequately ring-fence the funds needed to maintain good facilities in sufficient numbers.

In Kent, numerous toilets have been lost in the last decade, with conveniences often being sold-off or demolished. While others - attacked by vandals - have been forced into prolonged closures while they await often costly repairs.

No legal protection

Public conveniences have been a fixture on UK streets for more than 150 years - yet councils are under no legal obligation to provide them.

The BTA fears if cash-strapped local authorities can't balance their books in the years ahead, and with no laws to protect them, many more toilet blocks may disappear.

Raymond Martin, British Toilet Association managing director, says he has ‘every sympathy’ with town planners - as less money from central government has made providing even essential services difficult.

He explained: “It costs £5,000 to £8,000 to run a standard toilet.

“The problem is in years gone by they were always attended but attendants cost a lot of money.

“These things are absolutely vital. Toilets are absolutely essential. It’s a party of our everyday life.”

Kent in numbers

A Royal Society for Public Health report in 2019 estimated 700 publicly-owned blocks had shut across the UK since 2010.

Responding to those statistics, CEO Shirley Cramer said: “Our report highlights that the dwindling public toilet numbers in recent years is a threat to health, mobility, and equality that we cannot afford to ignore.

“Standing in the way of this necessary and serious policy discussion is a stubbornly persistent ‘toilet taboo’, a decade of cuts to local authorities, and an increasingly ingrained notion that public toilets are merely a ‘nice-to-have’.”

Maidstone, Dover, Tunbridge Wells, Tonbridge and Malling, Ashford, Gravesham and Dartford are among the Kent council districts to all have fewer council owned-and-run blocks today than they did 14 years ago.

Since 2010 Maidstone’s council-run facilities have shrunk from 20 to eight while Ashford council has gone from 13 to two.

In Dover, the council used to be responsible for 23 toilets but today that figure has dropped to 16. Gravesham has gone from 12 to seven.

Both Maidstone and Ashford say they have introduced community toilet schemes in town centres, to mitigate any losses, which enable shoppers to use the loos of private businesses signed-up.

An Ashford council spokesperson explained: “In 2010, the council managed 13 public toilets. In 2013, nine public toilets were transferred to the control of parish councils. In 2017, two public toilets were demolished due to numerous incidents of anti-social behaviour and vandalism.

“Prior to the two toilets being demolished, the council introduced the community toilet scheme. With a greater offering of facilities, including disabled, from a range of members in the town centre this ensured the public were not affected by a lack of facilities.”

Few councils have been able to buck the trend and run more toilets today than they did in 2010.

But among them are Folkestone and Hythe and Canterbury City Council which, with the help of government grants for Changing Places toilets providing facilities for those with additional needs, have seen an increase in the number they now oversee.

Canterbury council spokesman Leo Whitlock explained: "In 2016, we had 31 toilet blocks - we have 32 today including three council-run Changing Places toilets.

"Over the years the blocks making up that 32 have changed and some we've closed or sold and some have reopened.

"For example, the toilet at Sturry Road Park and Ride closed when the service stopped and is being used once again by the public now the buses into the city centre are back up and running.

"And the public toilet in Beltinge, which was being run by a community group, came back under our control in February last year."

Transferring public toilets into the hands of others - such as parish councils - is an approach some authorities have taken in an attempt to cut them loose from their budgets but keep facilities open.

In 2019, Tonbridge and Malling Borough Council shifted responsibility for the vast majority of its loos to parish and town councils.

Until then it ran toilets in 11 locations but the move left it with just three in Tonbridge town centre, now funded by a ‘special expenses’ surcharge on council tax bills for locals, along with one toilet in the country park.

However, where parish officials declined to take them on, toilets were closed and today facilities in Hadlow are shut. In Aylesford they have been closed and converted to a classroom for a nearby school and in Snodland they were leased to the town council and since converted to a food bank.

Meopham Parish Council near Gravesend also closed its block in April after officials revealed £50,000 was needed to bring it up to scratch on top of already hefty maintenance fees.

“In December, we set the 2024/25 budget and the decision was taken to close the toilets mainly on financial grounds” explained Cllr Paul Watson.

“The toilets are not in great condition and to bring them up to the right standard you're probably looking up to an excess of £50,000.”

However villagers opposed the decision in a recent poll and the parish council is now seeking definitive repair quotes before revisiting the issue again.

Counting the cost

In April, Sandwich Town Council (STC) temporarily closed facilities at The Quay and Cattle Market after vandalism simultaneously put both blocks out of action.

Speaking at the time, town councillor Emmet Csuka said: “While the town council has no statutory duty to supply public toilets, we regard their availability as something we should do our utmost to provide and to protect for our community and for visitors to the town.

“This latest spate of vandalism is very disheartening and is also very demoralising for our dedicated staff who try their best to keep the toilets open for everyone to use.”

In April this year, yobs targeted loos in Stade Street, Hythe, where they started a fire.

In Herne Bay, a spate of arson attacks and an incident in which a cleaner was reportedly abused and stopped from leaving a cubicle led Canterbury City Council to announce it was closing three toilets early, last July. And in March this year the same happened again, forcing another early closure of the block after a cleaner was pelted with cans and bottles.

While at the start of the year toilets at the coastal park on the Isle of Sheppey, which cost £140k and only opened last July, shut again after being damaged by vandals for a second time.

Bus station public toilets in Folkestone were also daubed with racist grafitti in October and last July Tenterden Town Council shared photos of damage inside its toilets after vandals went on the rampage.

Towns and cities with no public toilets

Getting rid of public toilets altogether - warns the BTA - is something increasing numbers of councils are resorting to.

In more than 35 areas of the UK, Mr Martin estimates, councils have now relinquished all responsibility.

And at the start of this year Somerset council unveiled proposals to close 25 blocks it owns in the popular tourist hotspot, to save the authority £300,000 as it grappled with a £100 million overspend. And in April, Woking council closed all its council-run toilets under measures to clear its £2bn debt.

Giving up responsibility for toilets or selling buildings to generate cash are tempting in tough times, appreciates the Association.

Disused toilets in Perry Street, Northfleet were sold in 2020 by Gravesham council for £86,000 – £56,000 above their guide price.

Council toilets in Longport, Canterbury were auctioned in 2017 with a guide price of £35,000 and nine years ago Canterbury City Council saw a block in Broad Street go for £200,000. Those toilets had been closed since 2000 as part of authority cutbacks at the time.

But Raymond Martin argues public toilets are a pillar of public health and access to good ones is for the benefit of everyone - from the elderly to the very young, alongside those with a health condition.

Without them, he warns, people will ‘vote with their feet’ and maybe choose to go elsewhere.

Isolating people with health needs?

Fewer toilets can prove isolating too.

Last year artist Tracy Emin hit out at available facilities in her home town of Margate after a number were closed for repairs.

Ms Emin - who was left with a urostomy bag after treatment for bladder cancer - said she was "appalled" to see human excrement along the beach and a lack of cubicles had forced her into ‘begging’ to use those in shops.

Thanet Council, which came under fire for the state of its toilets, has been refurbishing some facilities in time for summer. The council also installs a number of portable toilets at popular visitor spots just through the summer season.

But the issue of access to good, clean toilets is a growing problem believes Ruth Wakeman from Crohn’s and Colitis UK, which supports people with the inflammatory bowel conditions.

She explained: “More than 500,000 people in the UK are living with a diagnosis of Crohn’s or Colitis. One of the main symptoms of these conditions is urgent and frequent diarrhoea.

“We know that 9 in 10 people with Crohn’s and Colitis plan their journeys based on access to toilets. This is increasingly challenging, stressful and isolating as the number of public toilets declines.

“Access to toilets should be treated as a public health issue by governments across the UK. National and local decision-makers must take action to increase the number of publicly available toilets, rather than allowing them to close.”

Among those sufferers is Erin Griffiths from Tonbridge who has ulcerative colitis - a type of inflammatory bowel disease.

The 20-year-old says in a flare up sufferers already find it difficult to leave the house because of the need for frequent trips to the bathroom and knowing that public toilets may be hard to find can make things even more isolating.

No one, she says, wants to risk an accident or ‘public embarrassment’.

She added: “When you have a flare up you may need a toilet 20 to 30 times, you need access to clean and local toilets.

“Even if you do manage to leave the house it puts pressure on people to find a toilet in time.”

Mr Martin says recommendations for a government-backed ‘toilet commissioner’ have mostly fallen on deaf ears and more recently the proposal was dropped from the Levelling up and Regeneration Bill, designed to redress declining local services and turn around issues the country has faced since the pandemic.

“No one wants to be the minister of poo” he said.

“But it’s about people. It’s about looking after people. It’s about bringing people into the towns.

“We appreciate that councils have got next to no budget. We do have a lot of sympathy.”

Paying to use the loo?

But with public loos at risk without investment, what is the alternative?

Mr Martin points to places like Blackpool, where ‘beautiful’ public toilets are now maintained by a private firm on the council’s behalf but users must pay a fee of around 40p to meet costs.

“People don’t blink now, people don’t mind. When they were free they were stinking. Now they are absolutely beautiful” he explained.

While still a rare occurrence in Kent, some privately-owned facilities do charge - among them Canterbury’s Whitefriars shopping centre which according to its website has a 30p fee.

Other pioneering suggestions include attaching kiosks – selling items like food and drink or buckets and spades – to blocks to reduce the risk of vandalism or connecting toilets to car parks where drivers get a pin code on their tickets to use nearby loos.

Many UK McDonald’s restaurants adopt a similar policy with customers needing a valid receipt to use the bathrooms.

Paying to use public toilets was something former Canterbury council leader Ben Fitter-Harding said he felt the council may have to consider in the future, when as leader in 2021, he revealed how much toilets were costing.

Speaking at the time he said: “The overall annual budget for public loos is about half-a-million pounds, which to maintain the loos we’ve got - which aren’t the best standard in the world - is a huge amount of money.”

While far from ideal the BTA believes a cash or card charge may ultimately have to be the way forward.

Mr Martin explained: “Getting the government to take it seriously would be the ideal thing but if that can’t be done we’ve got to find our way of making them cost efficient.

“It covers the cost. It would keep the anti-social behaviour out. People will soon think nothing of it.

“We would like to see them be free. But we have to be pragmatic.”