… Not So Public Toilets

“I’m starting to think that, actually, we don’t need more public toilets…”

This was the guilty whisper of one toilet expert of my acquaintance during another of our obsessive rants research meetings.

For years (decades in fact), organisations have been counting and objecting to the decline in public toilets. 10% decline over this period… 20% down over another… etc.

However the overall numbers don’t tell the real story.

For one thing, the term ‘public toilets’ doesn’t take into consideration shopping centre toilets, department store toilets, supermarket toilets, train station toilets, etc…

Yet all of these Not So Public Toilets are available, to varying degrees, for the public to use, be it at the discretion of the private-manager.

Public toilets sprang to life in the Victorian age, from a culture of ‘cleanliness is next to Godliness’ and the philanthropic attitude of the upper classes towards the poor, filthy masses.