Lack of relief

British Home Stores, in Queen Street, has had a long, generous tradition of having toilets for people’s use, but no doubt with the hordes of people being encouraged to use them, they have now put in place a system meaning only customers who have bought something from the store – and have a receipt to prove it – are given the ‘code’ to open their toilet door.

I cannot say I blame them.

However, for someone with a medical condition like mine, it’s vital to plan where to shop to ensure there are facilities to use immediately. I used to use the BHS toilet first and then do my shopping or browsing afterwards.

Now I have to do my shopping beforehand to acquire the ‘code’. So ‘spending a penny’ has turned into costing me several pounds.

There were already queues in those stores which have toilets, showing that both public and private toilets are needed.

It seems to me that this impractical idea has scared BHS and, no doubt, will scare other stores into protecting themselves from even longer queues in their toilets, and from extra water, maintenance and cleaning bills, which are too much to reasonably expect them to deal with.

In a civilised society, the provision of public toilets should be a basic, human right. They should be provided through the council tax which we are paying already. Most people, however, would be happy to pay an extra 20p (including the precious tourists, who, of course, don’t pay council tax).

All we need are the basics – not a ‘super’ convenience to impress tourists.

It is cruel and unfair to expect a toddler, the disabled, OAPs, or anyone with bladder or bowel problems, to ‘hold on’ until they get to the other side of the city to use a ‘super’ public toilet.

Surely, all our public toilets were built all over the city because there was an obvious need for them.

That was many years ago. Nowadays we have thousands more students and tourists, plus population growth.

This surely means we need more toilets in the city – not fewer.

PAMELA WEBBER Bullingdon Road Oxford