Decline in public toilets is quality of life issue

2.00.00pm BST (GMT +0100) Wed 7th May 2008

Welsh Liberal Democrats today called for improved provisions for public toilets after figures reveal a dramatic fall in the number over the last ten years.

The total number of public toilets in Wales has fallen by 16% in just ten years. In an Assembly debate today Welsh Lib Dems will call on the Assembly Government to recognise the importance of public toilets and bring forward a strategy to ensure that public toilets are safeguarded and improved.

Welsh Liberal Democrat Kirsty Williams AM said: "The ability to go to the toilet safely, securely and with dignity is a basic human right. We rightly talk about the fear some elderly people have in leaving there houses at night because of crime and anti-social behaviour. But it is very rare that we talk about elderly people being confined to home because of lack of access to a public toilet.

"The picture across Wales is patchy. In the last decade or so, the number of toilets in each local authority has fluctuated -.yet the need to access hygienic public toilets remains constant.

She added: "Some of the Labour AMs have been sniggering at this debate - but for many people this is a real quality-of-life issue."

Equality spokesperson Eleanor Burnham AM added: "Disabled people in my constituency and across Wales experience great difficulties with toilet access on trains. A survey by 'Leonard Cheshire Disability', found that across the UK, more than half (58%) of respondents said that the station that they travelled from did not have a usable disabled toilet, whilst four out of five (80%) did not find a toilet they could use on their train.

"They also found numerous examples of people being unable or unwilling to use the trains due to the lack of disabled toilet facilities.

"I know from my own experience that many non-disabled people feel the same way."

Notes:

Today's motion. To propose that the National Assembly for Wales:

1) Recognises the vital contribution well-managed public toilets can have on both the quality of life of local residents and on the image a place makes on visitors; and

2) Calls on the Assembly Government to bring forward a strategy for public toilet provision, location and distribution that is mainstreamed into all strategic level urban policy making.