It's World Toilet Day – Carnaby Street in inconvenienced

Today is World Toilet Day, an unofficial United Nations day designed to raise awareness for the need for publicly accessible toilet facilities. Surely this matter needs attention every day?!

Last Sunday, I was in central London and headed for what I knew to be some excellently maintained facilities at the Gt Marlborough Street end of Carnaby Street. Below is a screenshot of the latest available google streetview (July 2024) followed by two pics I took in Jan 2024:

As I approached on Sunday I noticed a huge black box surrounding the entrances:

Oh dear – these lavatories are no longer available. We are inconvenienced. I'm not sure when they closed but I'm pretty sure they were available in the summer. 

I did a quick circumnavigation of it looking for a Westminster Council sign that would explain what was happening and/or where the nearest available loos might be, but couldn't find anything. I might have  missed it because I had something important to attend to. 

These loos were featured in a post I wrote last year during a period when I had become interested in why so many of our public conveniences are now unavailable to us. I travelled all over the metropolis taking photos of my own and hunted for archive evidence, saving my findings into folders labelled Open/Closed/Converted/Gone – it's an ongoing project and, at a convenient time when I am not otherwise engaged, I will download some of my other photos here. 

"Waste not thy time in windy argument but let the matter drop." Attributed to William Shakespeare

I had written last year that whenever I use these Carnaby Street toilets I am often the only person down there. As you can see from the pics below, it was/is clean and bright below ground with salmon pink panels and basins and painted tiles depicting fashions from Carnaby Street. 

It's well-lit, both from the entrance as via ceiling lights. The attendant's room, visible through a shoulder height window is opposite the cubicles. Oh, and they are free to use. Those coin-operated pay gates are these days as good as redundant being as most people now use card readers, so perhaps that's one of the main reasons for renovation here. Whatever they do, I hope at least the tiles will be retained. I particularly like the panel at the far end wall depicting 1960's girl in a Mondrian inspired dress: 

I have read recently that some of these facilities are to be modernised. But it seems to me that councils across London have not grasped that it's not the facilities themselves that are at fault, but the fact that they are below ground and people are reluctant, for whatever reason, to venture down the stairs. Mindsets need to be adjusted. A bit of promo wouldn't go amiss – how about getting Crisis or Shelter involved to offer attendants jobs? 

Any ideas?

This article can also be found on my Substack/janeslondon