Belfast City Council has ‘let down’ residents and visitors with lack of public toilets

Alliance representative Ross McMullan told members at the recent remote Belfast City Council meeting they had to urgently reassess the “lack of provision, and address the lack of coordination and lack of investment from this council.”

The councillor said the council was “getting this fundamental completely wrong” and accused the council of doing nothing 10 years after commissioning a report from the British Toilet Association.

He told the council key evidence in this strategic report outlined that there was a causal link between visitor footfall on high streets and good provision of good quality toilets.

He said: “Several recommendations to increase toilet provision in this city centre were made in that report. A decade on, and one super-council later, public convenience provision is still without strategic direction in this council, with responsibility split across departments and no dedicated budget.

“As far as I’m aware, we really haven’t made much progress on any of the recommendations on that report. That included community toilet schemes and the return of public toilet attendants.”

He added: “From the experience of many of the people I’ve been speaking to over the last few months on this issue, there simply aren’t enough clean, safe, accessible and hygienic public toilets in the city centre. And we have let those residents down.”

A report was recently commissioned on public toilets in the city, to be returned to the Council’s City Growth and Regeneration committee.

Mr McMullan proposed the report outlines a strategy that looks at how provision can be increased.