Toilet Association chief expresses concerns over 2012 Olympics & Paralympics toilet shortage

Mike Bone, the managing director of the British Toilet Association has raised concerns that there won't be adequate toilet provisions to cope with demand on the perimeters of the 2012 Olympic Games.

“The London Organising Committee for the Olympic Games (LOCOG) has pledged to provide first class toilets facilities for all event visitors within the confines of all Olympic and Paralympics event venues.These will include toilets for males, females, babies and children, accessible toilets and changing places toilets.They will include portable toilets and permanent toilets within 'permanent' venue locations. All toilets will comply with the recommendations included in BS6565:Part 4 2010 and BS8300,” explains Mike.

“Although the British Toilet Association (BTA) provided help and advice to LOCOG relating to their planned visitor toilet provision we were not made aware of the budget allocated to this provision. Contracts were allocated to tendering companies and, with the exception of portable toilets, the costs of cleaning and maintenance of toilets provided by LOCOG would no doubt be included in the overall cleaning contracts for entire venues. “When involved with LOCOG early in 2011 BTA was confident that adequate quantitative provision would be provided.

“However BTA is concerned that publicly accessible toilet facilities outside of the venue 'fenced areas' may not be adequate. For example the current provision in the Stratford, main venues, area, and the facilities in the Weymouth area may not be adequate for current needs, and will be therefore be totally inadequate for the significant increase in users throughout the Olympic and Paralympics Games period. In our view, the availability of publicly accessible toilets in Central London, where millions of additional visitors will be during the games,may also not be adequate to meet greatly increased needs.These views have London 2012 been expressed to GLA.”