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Dear Mr Chisnell,
As promised in my letter of 3 March, I am now able to provide
a substantive reply to your letters of 18 December and 12 February.
However, I should again apologise for the delays.
I am sorry to hear of your concerns about public toilet provision.
As you are aware the provision and maintenance of toilets in public
places is at the discretion of local authorities who have a power,
but no duty, to provide public conveniences under section 87 of
the Public Health Act 1936.
The Government wants to see local authorities act as effective
and responsible community leaders and it recognises that the provision
of public toilets are an important local service.
However, over the years, Governments have placed an increasing
number of central controls on local authorities. The cumulative
effect has been the undermining of local decision making and the
erosion of authorities' ability to respond to local circumstances.
Each individual requirement may look reasonable and will indeed
have supporters, including in local government, but taken together
they amount to a catalogue of often very specific obligations which
remove flexibility in local decision making. The Government therefore
believes that decisions in this area are rightly left to those
who are locally accountable for the choices made.
You mention the requirement to comply with the Disability Discrimination
Act (DDA) as a reason that local authorities are closing down toilets.
Part 3 of the DDA currently requires service providers to do only
what is reasonable to remove barriers to access for disabled people.
That might include: assessing the extent to which it is practicable
for a service provider to take the steps needed to make a service
accessible; the financial and other costs of making such an adjustment;
and the extent of the service provider's financial and other resources
to pay for such changes.
These duties will be extended from 1 October 2004 to a requirement
to make reasonable adjustments to physical features which make
it otherwise impossible or unreasonably difficult to make use of
a service which is being offered to the public. However, local
authorities would not be expected to close existing toilet facilities
where it is not reasonable to make adjustments for disabled people.
Where local authorities are using the Disability Discrimination
Act as a reason for closing these facilities, this could be based
on a misinterpretation of the legal requirements of Part 3 of the
DDA.
With regard to the provision of toilets on buses and trains, t
here are no specific obligations on bus or train operators to provide
toilet facilities either on board buses or trains or at stations.
The franchise agreements which govern the provision of passenger
rail services require certain minimum standards of station facilities
to be achieved within stipulated timescales, and these include
provisions in respect of cleanliness, but they do not require toilet
facilities to be provided.
Train operators must, however, demonstrate through the use of
independently audited surveys that they are improving levels of
customer satisfaction, and they will only make the most of their
commercial opportunities if they provide the facilities which passenger's
demand. For these reasons they provide toilet and other facilities
where they consider it appropriate. If operators provide toilet
facilities, they are of course subject to the same environmental
health requirements as any other provider of these facilities.
Standards do exist on the provision of public toilets. In order
to receive planning approval, new buildings must comply with the
guidelines in the series of Approved Documents published by the
ODPM which explain the regulations in the Building Regulations
Act 1984. The design of accessible public toilets is covered by
Approved Document M (1999 edition) paragraphs 4.1 to 4.20. We have
recently revised this guidance and new buildings which receive
Building Control approval after 1 May 2004 , will need to adhere
to the 2004 edition of Approved Document M. The relevant guidance
in the new Approved Document M is sections 5.1 to 5.14, and the
Approved Document is on the ODPM website at
http://www.odpm.gov.uk/stellent/groups/odpm_control/documents/contentservertemplate/odpm_index.hcst?n=4222&l=4
The British Standard that covers scales of provision of toilets
(BS6465) is being revised and there are proposals to improve provision
for women, particularly in places of entertainment. Sections 12.4
to 12.4.12 of British Standard BS 8300: 2001, 'Design of buildings
and their approaches to meet the needs of disabled people: Code
of practice', also cover the design of toilets.
You also raise the subject of anti-social behaviour in public
toilets. The Government recognises that graffiti and vandalism
are serious offences which cost the taxpayer hundreds of millions
every year and creates an environment where crime and fear of crime
thrive. Powers contained in the Anti-Social Behaviour Act 2003
allow the Police, Local Authority Officers and Community Support
Officers to issue a Fixed Penalty Notice (FPN) to anyone caught
graffitiing or vandalising. Furthermore, it also creates an offence
of selling spray paints to anyone under the age of 16. The Government
has also recently launched a number of initiatives to tackle the
blight such as 'Operation Scrub-It' which includes, as part of
this initiative, the "Name that Tag" poster campaign.
The “Name that tag” project is among the first of a new programme
of action which forms the Together campaign, announced
in October with the Action Plan on anti-social behaviour.
I can also assure you the supply or possession of a controlled
drug is illegal in any setting including a public toilet. If you
require any further information regarding the supply or use of
drugs in public toilets you should contact the relevant local Drug
Action Team who can advise on what measures are being taken locally
to control the problem .
The Sexual Offences Act 2003, which comes into force on 1 May
this year, includes an offence (section 71) of "sexual activity
in a public lavatory". This makes it an offence to engage
in any form of sexual activity in a public toilet and carries a
maximum penalty of six months imprisonment.
Turning now to your comments on street urination. The Government
agrees that urinating against the wall of people's shops, houses
and offices is unacceptable in a civilised society. Local by-laws
have been used to deal with this problem. However, to strengthen
authorities' powers in this area, the criminal Justice and Police
Act 2001 introduced a scheme for issuing FPNs for disorder of this
type. Police forces piloting this scheme have found FPNs an effective
way of tackling this behaviour.
Finally, as you know, current legislation only requires persons
who operate pubs, cafes and places of entertainment to provide
toilets for their customers. However, we know that local authorities
have, through their chamber of commerce, formed agreements with
local businesses to enable their facilities to be used by the wider
public. This practice has been supported through recent developments
- for example town centre improvement - where, as a condition of
the lease or planning agreement, businesses have been encouraged
to share toilets with users of adjacent public spaces.
Yours sincerely,
Andrew Hamilton
For further information contact:
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