Lack of public lavatories keep the elderly indoors

A DEARTH of public lavatories in the United Kingdom is keeping elderly people at home, the Royal Society of Public Health has warned.

Researchers said the fitness levels of the population were being compromised by a fear of getting caught short without access to a lavatory.

A survey of more than 2,000 adults found one in five said a lack of facilities deters them from leaving home as often as they would like.

Three in four adults said there was a shortage of local lavatories.

Shirley Cramer, chief executive of the society, said: “Our report highlights that the dwindling public toilet numbers in recent years is a threat to health, mobility, and equality that we cannot afford to ignore.

“As is so often the case in this country, it is a health burden that falls disproportionately on disadvantaged groups.

“Standing in the way of this necessary and serious policy discussion is a stubbornly persistent ‘toilet taboo’, a decade of cuts to local authorities, and an increasingly ingrained notion that public toilets are merely a ‘nice-to-have’.”

The RSPH report recommends that the provision of public lavatories should be made compulsory in planning law, with equal access for women and transgender people.

It also calls for the Government to encourage schemes to boost funding for public lavatories, for example by taking a penny from the price of every train and bus ticket to finance them.

“Public toilets are no luxury. It’s high time we begin to see them as basic and essential parts of the community – just like pavements and street lights,” Ms Cramer said.

“It is deeply concerning that, amid a national obesity crisis, at a time when public health policy is to encourage outdoor exercise, our declining public toilet provision is in fact encouraging more people to stay indoors.”