After the Elizabeth line. Once again on toilets
If you travel in and out of Paddington station on a regular basis as I do you’ll probably have noted the news story about trains on the Elizabeth line stuck near the station for some hours on Thursday evening due to overhead wire damage.
Overhead wire damage delays are not exactly unknown on the rail. Retford being a frequent offender as the electrification on LNER was perhaps not done to quite the highest standard back in the day.
One issue about the Paddington debacle was however that Elizabeth line trains have no toilets. Given that they run from Reading to Shenfield/Abbey Wood which can take over 100 minutes that reflects an interesting detail of modern British life. Its true that London Overground trains run by TFL don’t have toilets but journeys on them are not usually that long, although Hackney Wick to Clapham Junction is a stretch.
Toilets are a vanishing part of British public life. As someone in their late 60s I find I need to visit one quite frequently (partly due to medication) and that means planning where I can visit one when I go out.
It is of course part of the privatisation of the public domain. After all, where is the profit in toilets? In a varied career I was once a building facilities manager and that included responsibility for bogs and basins. In a workplace they are essential.
Toilets get blocked, need cleaning and leak. All this costs money. The unfortunate reality is that however marvellous a refurbished toilet (at some expense) looks it remains just that- a toilet. Clearly there are more interesting and profitable things to invest money in.
I don’t expect much in the way of even modest reforms from a Starmer Government but given he is now 60 and must need to pay a visit from time to time, perhaps the public toilet issue could be addressed.
This is the second article I’ve read recently about the lack of public toilets in the UK. Allied to this lack is the refusal of many establishments with toilets to allow the general public to use them. I live half the year in Chiang Mai, Thailand a country which is streets ahead of UK in such provision.Every gas station, shop, restaurant etc has at least one & they are invariably spotlessly clean. I know which is the third world country here & it isn’t Thailand. Other half, the cricket season I live near you in Llandough, Penarth.
I also live in Tottenham by the way where at least a former public toilet is now a very good pub- the High Cross
I don’t understand why the lack of toilets isn’t considered discrimination against disabled people, pregnant women, children and the elderly.
True, yes, I agree!