Why not reopen the public toilets in Hastings?

According to an article in The Observer Mandy Bevan, a Hastings key worker who suffers with chronic irritable bowel syndrome, asked Hastings Borough Council if it would consider reopening the town’s public toilets, as they are essential for her as she is having to avoid using public transport, due to the coronavirus crisis and, instead, walk to the care home where she works.

This takes her over an hour, during which time she says she often needs to go to the toilet.

(Hastings key worker asks for publicly accessible toilets to be reopened)

However, HBC responded by saying that, although it was sorry to hear that closure of the town’s public toilets was causing problems for people like Mandy, it cannot reopen them because it cannot ensure their cleanliness.

Well, I find that quite strange because over here, to the west of the county, Adur and Worthing Councils, who work in conjunction with each other, are managing quite well, thank you very much.

Whilst not every one of its public loos are open they have managed to keep thirteen of its twenty eight fully open, together with the disabled facilities in two others.

In other words, whilst they can ensure that more than 50 per cent of theirs are available for people like Mandy, HBC has failed to keep even a handful open.

Perhaps whoever is in charge of the toilets in Hastings could just pick up the phone and find out how Adur and Worthing councils are managing to do something that HBC has found impossible.

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