When Paul came down the communal stairs at his block of flats in Soho, central London, he was faced with the sight of a young man outside urinating against the glass front door. The man was too drunk to notice Paul standing there, so Paul had to wait in the lobby until the man had finished. Living in an area surrounded by pubs and bars means dealing with public urination – and worse – is something he has grown used to. “It becomes normalised,” he says. “But that doesn’t mean it’s right.” His family are from Soho, and he says a lot of visitors aren’t aware there is a community who live there. When people realise and are apologetic, he doesn’t mind so much – it feels thoughtless, rather than disrespectful. It’s far worse, he says, when “you get people who are just belligerent or rude”.
Public toileting – or “wild toileting” as it has been called, like an antisocial version of wild swimming – has been a growing concern, particularly since Covid closed public loos, many never to reopen. That comes on top of a longer-term decline in public facilities – Raymond Martin, managing director of the British Toilet Association, estimates we have lost 50% of public toilets in the past 10 years. Meanwhile, cash-strapped councils’ street-cleaning budgets have been under pressure, as costs of cleaning, particularly during the pandemic, have risen. And according to a report by the Association for Public Service Excellence, public satisfaction at cleaning is at its lowest in five years.
