Some can sing, some can dance, and some can resist the urge to eat all twenty-five days of their advent calendar in one sitting. My hidden talent, however, is being able to tell you where the nearest public toilet is at all times. So, you can imagine how I feel about the prospect of loo-sing all of the public toilets in the capital city. Not good, folks. Not good, at all.
Victorian Plumbing has revealed some exc-loo-sive new statistics which show that the UK is set to have no public toilets left by the year 2105. And look, I know what you’re thinking: 2105 seems awfully far in the future for us to be worrying about this right now. But what if I told you that the borough of Hammersmith and Fulham could be completely loo-less by 2029?
In the year 2000, there were around 6087 public toilets in the UK. In the year 2021, that number had plummeted to just 3990. This trajectory predicts a future where the UK streets could completely lack public lavatories.
Hammersmith and Fulham aren’t the only London borough having their public loos flushed out. Lewisham follows closely behind and is set to be loo-less in just 13 years time.
Here’s a loo(k) at which London boroughs are facing the most imminent toilet-extinction:
- Hammersmith and Fulham – 2029
- Lewisham – 2036
- Hounslow – 2040
- Harrow – 2040
- Merton – 2046
- Southwark – 2047
- Barking and Dagenham – 2047
- Camden – 2048
- Tower Hamlets – 2048
- Brent – 2051
Victorian Plumbing has launched a petition to turn the tide on what is actually a very serious public health issue. Brenna Ryan at Victorian Plumbing, thinks the UK Government also needs to take a stand. Ryan said: “It may seem like a trivial thing to worry about, but the dwindling number of public toilets speaks to a broader issue of societal neglect. Every year, the numbers decrease, and with it, so does our promise of a basic human right: the right to sanitation. It’s not just about answering nature’s call, but about upholding the dignity of everyone, irrespective of age, gender, or social status.”
Find out more and sign Victorian Plumbing’s petition here.