This is just taking the piss

[Nearly Sane]

Reads like the Daily Mash


http://tinyurl.com/o8f8ojn

[Brownie]

   A wee indiscretion.

[Hope]

I had intended to start a thread on public conveniences last week, but forgot.

Many local councils seem to be closing their PCs on the grounds of cost - but why were they ever made free in the first place?  After all, the term 'to spend a penny' comes from the fact that one had to pay 1d to open the lock on the early public toilets.  Would anyone here suggest that they could run their toilet(s) at home for free?

Have we, as the public, expected the unreal and are we now 'paying the price'?

[Brownie]

I don't know, Hope.  We pay Council Tax, some pay a lot.  Surely loos can be maintained out of that alongside other things.

Some public lavatories - the kind that look like space capsules and you wonder, if you can get in, will you be able to get out - do have a coin slot.  I don't know if they are council or privately owned.

Most department stores and supermarkets have such facilities now, quite free.  I understand that McDonalds allow anyone to use their loo regardless of whether of whether or not they are customers.

I daresay the abundance of toilets in shops and restaurants is why council ones are being closed, they are not used as much and not as nice and clean as the ones in Sainsbury's.

However I worry about someone suddenly taken short and not having the right change, a nightmare scenario.

[Hope]

Some public lavatories - the kind that look like space capsules and you wonder, if you can get in, will you be able to get out - do have a coin slot.  I don't know if they are council or privately owned.

Many are council owned.  Unfortunately, as I and my wife have found when taking elderly folk shopping and the like, very few places outside supermarkets are keen on letting people use their toilets without being paying customers.

[Brownie]

How would they know that someone going to the toilet wasn't going to buy something afterwards?

Imo, it is extremely unkind not to allow people to use a customer toilet in a supermarket, common courtesy and basic humanity dictates that help is offered to anyone in need.

By the way, B&Q don't have public toilets, at least not the one I went to earlier this year, which is quite a big one.   I went in there with my son who wanted to buy something and he breezily said to one of the staff near the entrance:  "Please show me where I can find masonry paint and my mum needs the toilet".   I was politely escorted to the staff toilets because there were none for customers.

[Harrowby Hall]

What this story is really about, of course, is the ridiculous over-centralisation of government in the UK.

Local authorities are saddled with duties by central government and are then subject to restrictions on how much money they can raise and how they can spend it. This council - faced with a requirement to operate more "efficiently" took a decision which was easy to implement without considering the consequences.

Red faces all round.