The question of washroom access has always been critical to ensure that everyone can take part in society, but in recent years, the calls for more public toilets have gotten louder as local authorities have taken increasingly drastic action to balance budgets with the needs of their communities.
According to the Centre for Public Infrastructure, the amount of money spent on public washrooms by local authorities was halved, a quarter of toilets were outright closed, and one in five people said that they left their homes less often because of this.
The optimal solution to this is to increase and ringfence funding for new toilet cubicles, the restoration and reopening of existing ones, and to treat public washrooms as a statutory duty in the same way that other essential parts of local infrastructure are.
However, one immediate term solution some local authorities have attempted to fix the chronic lack of public toilet access whilst minimising the budget constraints was the community toilet initiative, where local businesses provide public toilet access.
How do community toilet initiatives work? Should they be more widespread? Should your business take part? And to what extent can they serve as a substitute for public washrooms?
What Is A Community Toilet Initiative?
A community toilet initiative (CTI) or community toilet scheme is an incentive scheme where local authorities (typically city or borough councils) encourage local businesses to open their existing washrooms intended for customers to members of the public.
Initially launched in 2008, CTIs were intended to be a short-term solution to an increasing shortage of public toilets caused in part by shortfalls in budgets and a lack of statutory requirements for local authorities to provide them.
The general idea, as explained by the British Toilet Association’s Use Our Loos initiative, is that, given that some businesses and retailers have a statutory duty to provide toilets for customers anyway, they can also provide access to non-customers.
They would typically receive publicity materials to display that they are part of a relevant scheme, and in some cases, will also receive payments to cover the maintenance cost of washroom users who have not paid for products or services, which would go towards the costs otherwise.
Why Should Businesses Take Part In Community Toilet Initiatives?
A somewhat understandable question local companies will ask is why they should make their toilets available to the general public, given that they have no duty or obligation to do so.
This concern was most recently voiced in the Yorkshire seaside town of Scarborough, where, according to BBC News, no businesses agreed to take part in their community toilet initiative.
As CTIs vary in scope, execution and scale depending on the local authority, the answer for why businesses should take part is similarly varied. However, there are three major incentives that are often found in CTIs.
Financial Incentives
Scarborough Town Council, as well as some of the other councils that have a CTI, offer financial support for doing so, typically taking the form of an annual stipend that covers the additional costs to maintain the toilet facilities.
The funding of schemes such as the one proposed in Scarborough was described as “modest”, so whether the offered money alone would be enough to convince businesses to open up their bathrooms is possibly dubious.
Promotional Benefits
Any business taking part in a CTI will receive promotional materials and be advertised by the council as participating in the scheme. This typically takes the form of stickers to place in the window, additional signage and appearances in both print and online council reference material.
Being part of a CTI increases footfall for participating businesses as people use their washroom facilities, and some savvy shops and cafes use this as an opportunity for additional custom by providing specials boards and menus and takeaway options that could turn a non-customer into a customer.
Civic Duty
Providing public washrooms also provides a reputational boost, as businesses that participate are seen as being positive parts of their community and seeing their customers as people rather than sources of revenue.
Should Community Toilet Initiatives Be More Widespread?
Whilst there are benefits to CTIs to both members of the public and to participating businesses, there is no evading the realisation that it also reflects a failure on the part of public services, councils and local authorities to provide adequate washrooms.
They ultimately cannot act as a replacement for adequate public washrooms that are designed specifically to serve the community. They have been beneficial in some areas but less effective in others, and businesses should not be expected or even required to cater to non-customers.
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