Public Toilets

[bresail]

n view of the closure of some of our public toilets, we must go back in time to see how our ancestors used to cope.

The first flushing toilet is reputed to have been at Skara Brae circa 31st century BC, so we have to go back further than that. To a time when we had no fear of dropping our keks when the need came, there were no chariots in those days so there was no fear of being run down in mid crouch. Going for a walk/picnic was a family affair and squats/squatters had a different meaning then.

So what can we do to prevent tourists coming up here to use our toilets?

It seems to me that we are missing an oppurtunity to cash in on our lack of toilets.

We do not want them to foul our beaches so a 2440mm (8ft) x 300mm (12 ins) plank with a hole cut in the end should clear them over the banks and rocks. There is a a problem with this, a further two heavy people are needed to balance the other end. Choose your planks carefully!

There is another way which is Dial - a - Bog, a small fleet of mobile toilets towed behind taxis, there is a possible bonus in this way by charging for the taxi and the toilet.

There is also a third way and this is genius, a specially adapted suitcase with a pull up curtain and a chemical toilet inside. These toilets could be sold at all entry points to Shetland, maybe hiring them out would be more profitable

Investment could possibly be had from the council, they know a good deal when they see one.

There is however a dilemna. Will we have to declare Shetland a toilet free zone?

Vorsprung durch Technik. Bressay is leading the way, they have a Dial -a -Boat to the Noss toilets but check the timetables first. In the winter there is a 7 months wait.

Regards,

Rex

[Claadehol]

The closure of public toilets in these affluent times seems unbelievable. I worked in these islands in the 60's and there was little money around then.

However they managed to keep the toilets open. They may have been basic, but hey! it's a pretty basic function.

Well maybe not pretty!

[Ghostrider]

They can close as many public toilets as they like, as long as they suspend all the laws prohibiting urinating etc in a public place, indecent exposure while doing or attempting to do so etc. Insisting folk can't do any of it but at the same time providing inadequate or no facilities to reasonably expect them to do otherwise is absurd. What is everyone supposed to do, pish and sharn themselves at take it home for disposal that way.

 

Yes, its pretty?? unbelievable that we can somehow afford funky new office blocks for the legions of desk bound council suits, "decorative" traffic roundabouts, "pretty"?? bits of pavements on the Esplanade and god knows what else, but can't afford to keep a few pish hooses open.

 

Its not like they need to be posh, although apparently the council seems to think they must be by the looks of all they ones they've built (and mostly subsequently closed) in the last 40 years. A hole in the ground behind a few corrugated iron sheets, and someone to give it a once over with a bucket of bleach occasionally, how much does that really need to cost.....

Edited April 18, 2014 by Ghostrider

[Colin]

I wonder if the next person caught 'taking a leak'  would be willing to cite the SIC as a co-defendant in front of the sheriff?

 

I pay my council tax etc so that I an have the convenience of a public convenience, clean streets and various other front line services.  I resent having to pay so that some 'seat polisher' in a nice clean, well lit office who just happens to know how to use a spreadsheet can make a plausible(?) case for shutting toilets, bus waiting rooms, old folks meeting rooms etc. etc. etc...... 

I haven't yet heard of any such 'seat polisher' electing to terminate their own employment.  I wonder why?

[MuckleJoannie]

In my youth there were still a few of the old thunderboxes positioned at the banks broo or at the edge of a pier. Effluent went straight into the sea with no need for further intervention. This one at Voe was of the more deluxe variety, made of concrete

 

http://photos.shetland-museum.org.uk/image.php?i=59403&r=2&t=4&x=1

 

http://photos.shetland-museum.org.uk/image.php?i=59404&r=2&t=4&x=1

 

[Ghostrider]

I wonder if the next person caught 'taking a leak'  would be willing to cite the SIC as a co-defendant in front of the sheriff?

 

I pay my council tax etc so that I an have the convenience of a public convenience, clean streets and various other front line services.  I resent having to pay so that some 'seat polisher' in a nice clean, well lit office who just happens to know how to use a spreadsheet can make a plausible(?) case for shutting toilets, bus waiting rooms, old folks meeting rooms etc. etc. etc...... 

I haven't yet heard of any such 'seat polisher' electing to terminate their own employment.  I wonder why?

 

I wonder how long it would take to get the closed crappers reopened, if everybody barged in to the nearest SIC premises and demanded to use their toilets whenever they needed to.

 

Sounds a reasonable plan to me, seeing as they're effectively public buildings and they've removed the purpose built ones for the job.

 

I would imagine Councillors having to put up with a stream of joe public traipsing in and out of the Town Hall ones would soon change minds.

[Colin]

I wonder how long it would take to get the closed crappers reopened, if everybody barged in to the nearest SIC premises and demanded to use their toilets whenever they needed to.

 

Sounds a reasonable plan to me, seeing as they're effectively public buildings and they've removed the purpose built ones for the job.

 

I would imagine Councillors having to put up with a stream of joe public traipsing in and out of the Town Hall ones would soon change minds.

 

Only problem I see with that is being allowed in at all.  Most of the SIC office space that I have seen has a security door to keep the great unwashed public at bay.  Maybe take one against the door?

[Ghostrider]

 

I wonder how long it would take to get the closed crappers reopened, if everybody barged in to the nearest SIC premises and demanded to use their toilets whenever they needed to.

 

Sounds a reasonable plan to me, seeing as they're effectively public buildings and they've removed the purpose built ones for the job.

 

I would imagine Councillors having to put up with a stream of joe public traipsing in and out of the Town Hall ones would soon change minds.

 

Only problem I see with that is being allowed in at all.  Most of the SIC office space that I have seen has a security door to keep the great unwashed public at bay.  Maybe take one against the door?

 

 

Do they really consider us that much of a danger and threat?!? Come to think, given some of the antics and stunts some of them pull on the public, its maybe their insurers who insist upon it.

 

Gotta admit, visiting any SIC office is an option of last resort, and then in and out as fast as humanly possible, so can't say much from personal experience. However, I would have expected that any office with a public reception area would have had some sort of visitors/public toilet facility - or is that being horribly naive of me.

[Cilla Cone]

Haud da whole lock gyaan ower da banks, bowels, kebabs, votin slips an' aa!

 

 

 

http://www.shetnews.co.uk/news/8379-future-of-free-bin-bags-in-doubt

[hjasga]

"Currently Shetland Islands Council is the only council in Scotland to provide 52 free bin bags to all homes at a cost of almost £25,000."

 

Cheerio, then. Folk are always complaining about the needless excesses we have relative to other authorities, this is clearly one. Have some emergency supplies at Market House for folk who genuinely need it, I'm sure the rest of us will get by. 

[Ghostrider]

The black bags are neither here nor there whether they supply them or not, but with all these "front line" cuts its getting to the point that you're tempted to wonder just what exactly it is many folk are now getting for there at least nearly a grand a year Council Tax. For somebody of working age, not staying in the town, doesn't have bairns in a school and doesn't drive, its not much.

[bresail]

That's it, hjasga is right. I believe that he means that we should offer the tourists a black bag as they arrive. They then have to cut two holes for their legs to go through. The position of these holes should be 1foot above the bottom of the bag so that it will leave a handy pouch, for obvious reasons.

Hjasga can you not see how unsanitary it is not to have adequate public toilets? It is probably also illegal.

If you go to Aberdeen with your family do you not use public toilets?

Regards,

Rex.

 

[Colin]

I know that rubbish bags are a luxury(?) but, my CT is over £1100 pa and, rubbish sacks are one of the few tangible things I/we seem to get for the money.

 

A little perspective is required here.

 

Just 25 households pay for rubbish bags for the entire island.  Not sure how many households that is in total but, we are looking at a very 'minor' expense in the grand scheme of things.

 

A long time ago, on a thread far away, I said that the only way that the SIC would ever achieve the required £35m savings would be to stop 'protecting' deadwood jobs and get rid of some 'back office' staff.

 

Just 1 job would more than pay for bin bags so, instead of scraping the barrel for every little penny savings, why don't our councillors bite the bullet and sack a few surplus seat polishers? 

[Ghostrider]

^ They would make it a lot easier for themselves to find a lot of their deadwood if they also reviewed some of their procedures and operational practices. Certainly the council is involved in areas of service delivery where a certain level of "talking people around" who are in denial or just "don't want to be a bother" is in the end justified. But when the "talking people around" is operated at a level (as I have personally witnessed several times over several decades) of finding it impossible to leave anyone alone who appears on their radar for whatever reason, unless they've managed to unload at least one of their "services" on them using a hard sell worse than any door to door salesperson I've ever met, its not only very wasteful of resources, but is insulting and gets folks backs up as well.

 

There is and has been for a very long time, a culture of arrogance in certain sections of the SIC where it seems they cannot comprehend that anyone would say "no", and an inability to accept that things are exactly as the person on question wants them to be, just because the situation that person chooses does not "get with the program" and conform to some text book ideal "life". To the point that the less stubborn and/or most easily intimidated feel unable to refuse some intervention or service they're being pressed to accept, which at best they do not really need, or is of no interest or use to them, and at worst is an inconvenience to them.

 

In some areas of service provision the SIC has created a culture of entitlement for everyone who ticks certain boxes, rather than anyone who ticks the boxes and has a proven need for the additional service(s), and the freeloaders are scooping it up as a result. Add the cost of that to those who have felt obliged to accept something just because they were told repeatedly they "needed" it and were given minimal opportunity to refuse it, even when they knew before the fact they had no use for it and didn't want it, and you start running up a tidy bill. Not only that, its pulling resources away from those who do genuinely need such services, want them and know they'd benefit from them, and costing everyone a small fortune keeping suits employed who seem hell bent on collecting as many "clients" as possible, for no other apparent reason than creating a workload to justify their own salary.

[sheltie53]

The closure of public toilets is a dam disgrace not unlike the closure of the Clickimin campsite; it is another knife in the back for our tourist industry which has had money poured into it in the hope of development but now is being sabotaged via the back door.

 

Why not install coin meters with a 10p charge to reduce costs rather than just say you need to be in Lerwick to P legally!

 

On the subject of rubbish bags I would like to know the cost of administration should they be sold at a reduced price, I bet the cost will be much more than giving them away but it will look like another saving has been made.

 

There is a clear need to reduce costs but someone needs to be have clear knowledge of what they are doing for the good of Shetland and that is clearly missing some targets.

 

How does anyone think the bus station (great wall) can be painted or maintained now that it has been covered with sheltered "toilet" facilities and will the cost be less than operating a very useful service, again maybe the charge for a service should have been subject of public consultation?

 

New school at Clickimin, what a great idea there will be no need to build a gymnasium as its already there ,again; the Shetland public will surely suffer but it’s ok as it will save money I only hope someone remembers that there is a landfill site with all sorts of toiletry waste right on the doorstep!

 

Street lighting and a safe method for pedestrians to walk at night or simply cross the highway needs another rant.

 

Rant over for tonight! night night.