The Bank Holiday on Monday, September 19th for Queen Elizabeth II’s funeral will mean a halt on council services, including the closure of all public toilets.
Thanet council says the decision has been taken as a mark of respect and to allow council operatives the opportunity to take part in the final day of national mourning.
The following service changes have been put in place:
Waste and recycling collections will be suspended.
Households who normally receive a weekly black waste collection on Mondays will have their waste collected on Saturday 17 September.
All other affected households will have their waste collected on Saturday 24 September. Letters will be sent to households who receive a weekly collection.
Other services affected:
Street cleansing will be suspended for the Bank Holiday and will resume on Tuesday 20 September.
All affected Clinical Waste customers will be contacted individually with more information and guidance.
Garden Waste collections scheduled for Monday 19 September will take place on Saturday 24 September.
The council offices at Cecil Street and Thanet Gateway Plus will be closed.
An out of hours service will be in place and recorded telephone messages in place on all telephone lines.
All public toilets will remain closed.
The Book of Condolence will not be available on Monday 19 September, members of the public can visit www.royal.uk to sign the electronic version.
And no one but no one will notice the difference….
Closing public toilets is a step too far. Should we all stay at home to avoid being taken short?
Public lavatories in England are notoriously smelly and unhygienic compared to those on the continent. So one tries to avoid them in any case.
I was going to say “They’re taking the p*ss”, but obviously the opposite is true.
This Queen business has gone way too far…mass hysteria like when Di had that “accident”
British Cycling today said cyclists shouldnt ride on Monday out of respect!!!!
This is apalling and surely would not happen in a properly democratic country! a low blow against children , and the elderly in a particular. Can the new King and new Prime Minster approve of this? Can anyone say nay to TDC and KCC?
Of course the King and PM didn’t approve this. It’s just TDC being TDC!
Have I got this right?
Trade Unions are forced to call off strikes so that their members will go INTO work as a mark of respect for the Queen.
On the other hand, many businesses and public services will close down for the day so that their workers can STAY AWAY as a mark of respect etc…..
Surely, if we are going out of our way to grovel to the monarchy we should get our empty gestures co ordinated properly!
Shutting the public toilets, that is unacceptable, many people will be out and about on Monday!
So people having to p**s and s**t there pants is a mark of respect in the eyes of Thanet Council.
Surely the toilets need to be open before they can be closed
I cannot see what everyone is complaining about most of them have been shut for some time the rest of them smell disgustingly a lot of the time, a little inconvenience (no pun intended) for the few who will be out and about. Myself would never use them due to hygiene conditions in the open ones.
Big Chris, you’re making a bold assumption in suggesting that only a few people will be out and about. Next Monday is a bank holiday and sunny intervals are forecast. Locals still need to exercise in the fresh air and there could be an influx of republicans escaping the crowds in London by taking day trips to seaside resorts.
Closing the toilets and postponing street cleaning is a false economy because the council will need to deploy extra staff to clean up all the surplus litter and human waste the following day.
It’s a good job your mates on the railways will allow them to “escape” then.
Can someone please, if possible, tell me the Law if ALL public toilets are closed and people need to go to the toilet. Shops, who normally let people in need use their conveniences will be closed (public holiday).Will the police prosecute people who urinate discreetly in the streets, and, if so, will those people be able to prosecute the council for not providing public toilets that they have paid for in their taxes.
Peeing behind the beach huts then? Good way to celebrate a funeral? Madness!
…or if in Ramsgate town centre …peeing against the walls in King Street and Queens Street. These service cuts haven’t been thought through at all.
“celebrate” a funeral???
Yes. Some people actually celebrate the life of some people on the day and at their funeral hence some are in complete silence and others clap and a few cheer for everything the Queen has done this has been happening a lot when famous actors and sports people have died, to me though I would be silent and head bowed as I was taught its a mark of respect like when a neighbour died those of us able to would stand outside and doft hats and bow heads as cortege went by. Respect not enough nowadays was shown to friends or foe and what ever colour.
I still take my hat off if I’m out and about and see a funeral procession go past! Like you Chris, it was the way I was raised.
i wont feel very respectful if i s**t myself on monday , quite the opposite in fact !
Don’t have sprouts mexicane for breakfast on Monday then!
TOP TIP – THANKS
Like everyone else, the TDC toilet attendants should be entitled to time off of work to watch the Queens funeral. They should not be made to work, scrubbing ginger skids off of the toilets used by the ungrateful Thanet residents. You would be the first ones to complain if the toilets were left open and not cleaned. By the sounds of it, most of you need to see a doctor, when they reopen on Tuesday, about your bowels. 99% of the population can leave the house without crapping themselves.
“TDC toilet attendants”? Haven’t seen one of those in YEARS! Or do you mean some bloke who pops in with a mop for 5 minutes (if we’re lucky), prior to closing?
Don’t think the toilets are cleaned anyway, just opened and locked each day!
How bloody stupid to close the toilets as a mark of respect !
People will be out and about next Monday and still need toilets , come on TDC , reverse a bloody stupid decision!!!!!
I take it all the boozers will be shut so no one can go in and use their lavatories.
Shutting everything including GP surgeries and hospitals is highly irresponsible so thank heavens we shall never experience another HM Queen’s passing on this scale.
It will all happen again when king Charles dies
In London, 500 portaloos are being provided.
In Thanet, the toilets are being closed.
Bonkers.
Contact your Councillors immediately and press them to get this decision reversed.
Blimey, I agree with Phyllis again…
But yes, when we went to London yesterday to view the floral tributes there were portaloos everywhere (and the one I used was cleaner than any public toilet I’ve used in Thanet).
Great way to honour the Queen to ensure that people who are as elderly / frail as she was will not be catered for at all in one very important way if they’re able to get out & about.
TDC seem totally obsessed with toilets, specifically how not to provide them.
would the attendants get paid time and a turd for working a bank holiday , and be given a loo day ??
Who is going to flush away King Charles the Turd on the day of the funeral?
Its not just about the respected manual workers we see doing their work, The back room staff like all the penpushers, beancounters etc of all pay grades may have asked to have an extended weekend.
No managers No back up staff = No manual workers.
Maybe tdc are taking this opportunity of trialling a 4 day working week just to see what happens.
TDC is so living in the past. It has no idea what we want anymore. it has no idea how to run a decent service or treat us decently anymore. TDC is so toxic you can see the crap coming out of the TDC office doors every day. Personally I don’t give a monkeys fart about the loos being closed, too dirty to use. Nor do I give a monkeys about all this fuss over a queen dying. We all die sometime, they will never give you a second thought when you die. I really hope charley mk3 is the very last of a toxic family to get crowned. May God save us all from them.
Joe, I gave up voting some time ago on both a local and national level. All candidates reek of corruption and mediocrity from top to bottom. None of them inspire and none of them possess an ounce of credibility. The out of date party system is largely to blame, creating a left/right tribalism that is bereft of any depth. Name-calling is the highest intellectual level on which they function.
Closing the bogs is the final straw and is where they all deserve to be flushed away.
I was amused by “Street Cleaning will be suspended” how can you suspend something that hasn’t existed for years@
that should be years!
Street cleaning has not stopped.
A day off for street cleaners what another they have six already.
I see street cleaners working in Ramsgate almost every day.
Do they sweep up, or just litter pick?
Ms Rees is correct there are street cleaners in ramsgate sweepers and pickers alike, also today for the 3rd month running our road has had the middle sized driven road sweeper down it and we have 9th the man & cart also litter picker down the road having seen him twice ar least we’ve also had the drain cleaner down did all bar one then came back and redid one and did the one they couldn’t due to a vehicle parked on it, if I can see what happens in our so should fitter people than me.
In the Birchington area, they tend to just litter pick (mostly by volunteers). Fine, but to keep weeds at bay, roads also need a good sweep!
Peter I remember the old days back in the early 60s when I Used to sweep outside the front of the house pavement area every Sunday depending on weather and use the lawn edger to hook out weeds and and occasionally sweep the kerbside if needed was not the only one as most neighbours did the same I started doing it for mum when was 10 or 11, those days we all had pride in our house and streets, how things have changed.
Big Chris- I now clear the weeds from the pavement at the base of my front garden wall. (Not really a garden-the space between the house and the pavement is just wide enough for the bins.) It only takes a few minutes.
“Do your own research”, as I’m frequently told.
Unlike you, my little Welsh Wonder, I’ve got better things to do with my time than watch people cleaning streets.
I wonder if Peter Checksfield’s books are more mature in their writing style than his contributions to these threads are.
Some have said that they’re comparable with Emin’s art!
Peter Checksfield’s 8.58 comment has had the not unexpected result of making me decide that although I have never met him, I think he is a despicable person.
We HAVE met.
Addressing a total stranger, or indeed anybody, as “my Little Welsh Wonder” makes it clear that Peter Checksfield is a condescending racist attention-seeker.I don’t care if he thinks he’s being amusing- he doesn’t amuse me.
Then you must be humourless, Ms Rees.
Perhaps Checksfield could start making fun of other Celts- the Scottish or Irish contributors on here might like a bit of his wit to be directed at them.
Ms Rees if everyone just did their little bit everywhere would be a much better area to live, its doing the little things that makes the big things smaller and easier to sort out. Thank you
All this talk of whether the streets are being cleaned or whether the toilets in Thanet are open or clean!!
It depends on whether these tasks are being properly funded.
And that depends on whether central government is willing to reverse years of deliberately reduced funding for local government.
I am quite sympathetic to any local Council, of whatever political bent, when faced, every year , with yet more reductions in the money coming from London. What do they cut next to try to break even? How much do they cut so that they avoid raising the Community Charge some more , and attract the criticism of those who complain that they are having to pay more for worse services?
For years, it has been a favourite policy to cut funding for Legal Services or Planning depts. After all, “what do they do? Just pen-pushers ” etc.
Well, without proper Planning Depts and Legal Services, our local Councils are helpless when better-funded property developers cheerfully cut down trees or renege on earlier promises to build affordable homes or fail to maintain newly planted hedges and trees on their housing estates. No money for solicitors, and no money to pursue Court cases. So the property developers get away with it.
The same with public toilets or street cleaning. A small reduction here and there in the cleaning contracts might not be noticed. But what if this happens year after year ?
And what about when the services are privatised and , though there is a notion of “competitive tendering”, in fact the same companies get the contract every time as the local Council doesn’t really have its own publicly-run services any more so there isn’t any competition and the private companies can impose their own contract.
Though it sounds a bit “counter-indicative”, if we want to change and improve our local services, we are better off voting for a change of government at Westminster than in voting for different Councillors here in Thanet.
But will we?
Would a Party that campaigns to increase money for local Councils attract many votes? Not very eye-catching is it?
Easy to smear as “more money wasted on Council bureaucrats”.
But, if local voters don’t change their behaviour at General Election time, all our frustration about poor local services will be so much hot air. If we end up with more Craigs or Sir Rogers , we will be back to moaning about it in these pages.
All this has got nothing whatsoever to do with their decision to close the remaining toilets for a bank holiday monday.
Yes, I’m a Royalist, and yes, I’ll probably be watching the funeral on TV, BUT I don’t find it disrespectful if others choose to do something else (and I may well want to get out and about myself afterwards – and use a loo!).
It’s clear that Peter Checksfield is a condescending pillock who has never met me. I realize he is very keen on getting responses from people and that I shouldn’t reply to him but it is difficult to ignore his condescending and ignorant remarks.
Deary me, someone has got out of the wrong side of bed this morning. Hope your day improves.
Go on to Amazon, type ‘Peter Checksfield’, find his 70s pop book and review it.
“books” (plural).
And as Ms. Rees doesn’t use Amazon and reviewers need to spend a minimum of £50 before they’re allowed to review anything (and even that is no guarantee), she has more chance of getting a direct train from Ramsgate to Cardiff.
I’m not in the least bit interested in reading any of Peter Checksfield’s books, as I’m not interested in their subjects. but thanks for the suggestion, So So!
But, not but
What does that mean? Is it a welsh saying?
I have had a look on line and Thanet is not the only council to close it’s toilets on Monday the 19th the day of the Queens funeral the nearest to Westminster I could find was Crawley in South London furthest away was Galloway in Scotland but there are more throughout the country, so Thanet is not unique in this matter. To all of those who have a weak blader or bowel they should check whose puplic toilets are closed before going out!!
They’re keeping all 500 temporary portaloos open in Westminster.
The solution is simple. Stock up and stay at home. We will never have to endure this again. After all, it is only for one day.
Talk about over-exposure in the media.
I am also appalled by the closure of toilets for the Queens funeral, though with winter coming, a lot will be closed anyway!, But lets spare a thought for the tens of thousand of workers whom have no choice on that day. Does no-one wonder what would happen if they went home for the day …… the emergency workers, the people that keep the water running through our pipes, the workers that keep the power coming into our homes. Please try not to take this as an opportunity to be even more vitriolic …….just an observation!!!
No vitriol from me Ed, I’m in total agreement!