Time to talk Toilets.

Toilets might not seem like the most exciting topic for some light reading on a Friday afternoon but stay with us – it’s important. Because toilets are important, especially in a publicly used space like Calderstones and recently we’ve had feedback that the toilets here have been getting into a less than ideal state.

Firstly, we want to assure everyone that we’re working really hard to deal with the toilets here. They’re cleaned every morning and we are now looking at how we can work with our cleaners to change their hours to keep the toilets in better shape. However, what we have inherited are some really really old toilets. The toilets themselves might look fairly modern but taking a look at the systems behind them shows something that pre-dates 1894 – take a look at the advert below from that year hailing the drainage system! Liverpool Mercury etc (Liverpool, England), Thursday, June 14, 1894; Issue 14492.

What this means is they’re prone to blockages and when we get those blockages George, our dedicated Building Coordinator goes and spends a long time sorting them out. One toilet is particularly tricky and in order to stop people using it George has scaled the walls of the toilet and locked it from the inside. However what we’ve then had are people that also scaled the toilet to re-open it and then unsuspecting members of the public are greeted with is a very unusable – out of use but now open toilet. Nobody wants to come for a lovely day out in the park and be faced with that. When this happens however our committed cleaners work to get the toilets back into action, and George ascends the cubicle again but it doesn’t last forever and what we’ve seen alongside this are a couple of repeat issues that arise when people put a lot of non-toilet related objects down there. Most people are really respectful of public loos but when this happens and people pop bottles, pants or on one occasion a shoe down…..we soon get the problems that have been raised. We’ve also had to put out the toilets after having been set on fire one summer evening too.

For the meantime we’re going to try to stop the mess happening and look at how we can work with our cleaners to get this sorted but long-term we’re going to create a much better solution. More loos!

That’s right the really exciting toilet news comes when we re-open after our redevelopment (if you haven’t heard that brill news read the announcement here) and massively increase the overall toilet provision inside the house whilst having some more modern toilets outside (no more old drain problems for George). Loads of loos!  When the building is closed for refurbishment, we’ll be closing the toilets too. Don’t worry you won’t have to search for the nearest tree – we’ll be getting in some lovely portable, modern flushing toilets.

What we really want to do right now is let people know we’re listening, we’ve heard you. We’ve seen the toilet situation when it gets bad and we’re doing our best to fix it. Do keep letting us know if there are problems. If people don’t tell us – we can’t sort them. If you’d like to take a look at the plans for the redevelopment and toilet provision these are available on the council planning website.

We’re not sure how we stop people putting their shoes down the toilets but we’re working on that too.

The Reader Team.