All of Thanet’s beach public toilets will be reopened this weekend (May 30).
The decision follows the easing of travel restrictions which resulted in an influx of visitors to isle beaches and bays and complaints of public areas awash with urine and human waste.
However, a warning has been issued that the facilities will be closed if staff cleaning the sites encounter abusive behaviour.
From Saturday beach toilets will be open to the public from 10am to 5pm daily, including disabled facilities which will be accessible with a RADAR key:
- Minnis Bay;
- West Bay;
- Westbrook Bay;
- St Mildred’s Bay;
- Botany Bay;
- Stone Bay;
- Dumpton Gap.
- The clock tower toilets in Marine Drive remain closed due to repairs needed on the structural condition of the building
Toilets open already include:
- Joss Bay;
- Margate Main Sands (Buenos Ayres/TS Eliot);
- Viking Bay (Harbour Street);
- Ramsgate (near Wetherspoons).
Cllr Steve Albon, Cabinet Member for Operational Services said: “As the Bank Holiday weekend showed, people are venturing further afield in light of the easing of government lockdown restrictions. We will therefore be opening all of our beach toilets from 10am to 5pm on Saturday 30 May.
“We have put in place a number of measures to provide a clean and safe environment for people using them. Hand sanitiser is provided and there are posters with information about maintaining social distancing, keeping cubicles clean and hand washing. We urge people not to use the facilities as a changing room as sand blocks the toilets.
“We are relying on members of the public to respect the space and to act in a responsible manner – leaving them as they would expect to find them. Our staff in the toilets are cleaners and are not there to manage or enforce social distancing.
“They worked extremely hard last weekend to keep our facilities open. It is a tough job, particularly in the current circumstances, and it is absolutely unacceptable to be abusive or rude to those members of staff. If this continues to happen, we will be left with no choice but to close the facilities.”
We could do with a lot more than these. A pissoir (also known as a vespasienne in French) is a French invention common in Europe that provides a urinal in public space with a lightweight structure. The availability of pissoirs is likely to reduce urination onto buildings, sidewalks, or streets.[1] They can be freestanding and without screening, with partial screening, or fully enclosed.
At least that’s something the one toilet on Margate seafront is not enough for the volume of people why are the toilets in the town centre not open the disabled toilets should be open the local people matter as well.The council should provide more facility.
Good luck with the single toilet at Botany Bay. Still I expect the council will have attendants on duty to ensure social distancing is working. NOT! I repeat we’ve been hung out to dry by TDC. Who can come up with what these initials stand for, how about TOTAL DOZZY C”””S. No, not CLOTS.
Seen it all before. I wonder how long it took you to work that out. ????
I would prefer TDC Toilets Don’t Close.
Not long Ann, see you’ve still no understanding of the issue re Botany Bay. Never mind as long as we keep the visitors coming, leaving everything but their money behind you’re happy!
Better Late than Never! How much do Trailer Loos cost, for other popular areas where there are no loos
Trailer loos were once hired in and people were too tight to pay the 20p cost. One used some sort of manual battering ram to knock the door off its hinges and avoid the cost. And then one after another his whole family used it, before they went into the amusement arcade where fistfuls of coins were raked from their pockets to play the pokies with.
Its only here and Dover / Sandwich with closed toilets ! Whitstable Canterbury Herne bay Medway towns all public toilets are open.
I recall that Birmingham used to have its own “pissoirs” , often,unfortunately on bridges over canals. Elaborate metal structures with Art Nouveau decoration.
But neglected and rusting and rotting away at the base(for obvious reasons!)
I think they may have been demolished or allowed to collapse though I recall attempts in the 1980s to try to preserve them as historical artifacts. Though they must have also served a practical purpose.
Birmingham is much revived these days, like so many of our large cities, so may have re-invented them.
But our small towns, like ours on Thanet, seem to have been left in the past with much-reduced funding from central government and tired, old-fashioned thinking from local MPs. I suspect Sandwich is no better as their toilets are closed almost permanently, I see.
Perhaps we could have some innovative new toilets to grace our streets. Something space-age, or Victorian-revival,or just open!
Agree Keefogs we need a new way of thinking and new initiatives as we emerge out of all of this. It’s a good opportunity to do so just now.
I witnessed the “safe environment” at Margate toilets today. Three guys with Eastern European accents tying off and shooting heroin in plain view of everyone walking in. Not even in a cubicle. Whilst another mate then started snorting coke off his mate’s hand. No Council staff or police anywhere near to report it to.
Nice! Why can’t these scumbags get high in their own houses?
Might find they have washed up later as no lifeguards after 5.00pm. At least toilets will be closed by then. We have enough scum in our area without more in the bogs too. I thought those ones were supposed to have staff. About time the one’s by the clocktower reopened, they have had a year to work on them already!
Have the council bothered to properly clean any of them. Last summer the ones in Ramsgate were bad, but the one at Dumpton Gap was a health hazard, you could smell it from over 50 meters away. In this lockdown when they were all closed they should have all been deep cleaned and even some refurbished. We are a tourist destination after all, so nice toilets that are not full of junkies and drug paraphernalia that stink to high heaven as they haven’t been cleaned properly in years would be nice. of course though that would require some forethought and actual understanding of what is needed by Thanet council, so that is why it will never happen.
Yes I recall that, the smell hit me for 6. I could hear carryings on going on in there and when I reported this matter I was told, “Yes, he walls were a little thin, but you can’t fault others for enjoying themselves”
Yes I recall that. The smell hit me for 6. I could hear carryings on going on in there and when I reported this matter I was told, “Yes, the walls were a little thin, but you can’t fault others for enjoying themselves”.
These toilets must be opened immediately and left open. Last weekend I suffered the indignity of seeing people kangarooing up and excrementing against my hedge. I ended up having to stand outside with the hose.
I am sure the bags hanging from the railings and bushes are not all dog droppings either
I have seen grown ups carrying buckets and spades, yet there are no children accompanying them. They must think we all came down in the last shower of rain.