Alec Marsh

The sorry state of our public conveniences

If you can find one, you usually wish you hadn’t

  • From Spectator Life
[Alamy]

Britain’s public loos are a national embarrassment. If you are in any doubt, head to Liverpool Street Station and spend a penny. It’s unquestionably the most odious and unpleasant public lavatory anywhere in the supposedly civilised world. It has to be experienced to be believed, but suffice it to say that the level of cleanliness on display would make a Medicine Sans Frontier doctor fresh from West Africa recoil in fear and reach for their PPE.

The floor is usually awash in various places with unknown fluids. The long shared trough installed for handwashing is so disgusting that you wouldn’t clean your dog in it. The supposedly automatic taps barely dispense water. The soap dispensers are equally hit and miss.

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