More toilets will take 'worry' out of London travel

On Wednesday, Transport for London (TfL) announced it would put £15m connected gathering much toilets crossed the web and improving existing facilities.

For Billie Nicholls, who has ulcerative colitis, the quality means she volition beryllium capable to question without "worry and stress".

The 28-year-old from south-west London said toilet entree for idiosyncratic with a gut oregon bladder information is "really important".

She was diagnosed with the chronic inflammatory bowel illness successful 2017 and has been surviving with a stoma container for 7 years.

TfL said it would summation the fig of disposable toilets from the existent fig of 185 truthful that customers were "always wrong 20 minutes of a toilet without having to alteration train".

It added that operation enactment was expected to commencement wrong the adjacent year.

Mrs Nicholls commutes regularly for enactment from Tooting Broadway to London Bridge and said the committedness was "brilliant" arsenic galore radical "don't person the luxury of waiting" for a toilet.

In October 2019, she was reminded conscionable however important entree to toilets could be.

After finishing a gathering successful her bureau successful Bankside astatine the extremity of the day, she discovered that her stoma had leaked down her leg.

"It conscionable wasn't sticking to my skin," she said. "I ran arsenic speedy arsenic I could to get to the Tube.

"When I got to Euston, my stoma was falling disconnected my stomach. There was poo each down my leg.

"If determination had been a toilet earlier successful my journey, that decidedly would person made a difference."

Helena Salisbury, from Weybridge, uses the Tube play to question crossed London for enactment meetings.

She was diagnosed with colitis a twelvemonth agone and said that portion a 20-minute spread betwixt toilets was a "step successful the close direction", it was inactive not enough.

"The perfect is 1 successful each station," the 29-year-old said. "You privation that bid of mind."

Ms Salisbury said that during a colitis flare-up, "20 minutes is really a precise agelong time".

She antecedently chose not to travel into enactment during a flare-up due to the fact that question connected the trains and Tube web was "anxiety inducing".

"I didn't person bid of caput travelling," she said. "Once you're underground connected the Tube, you're stuck. It tin origin rather a batch of stress."

Ms Salisbury added that it would beryllium adjuvant if TfL illustrated which stations had toilets with a representation wrong carriages.

Fern Howard, from Crohn’s & Colitis UK said she was pleased to perceive that entree to toilets would beryllium improved but echoed Ms Sailsbury's interest that waiting 20 minutes was "often not possible".

"We cognize that 9 successful 10 radical with Crohn’s oregon Colitis program their activities based connected toilet access," she said.

"It is challenging, stressful and isolating if nationalist and accessible toilets are not available."

John McGeachy, from Age UK London, besides welcomed the funding.

"Public toilets are not thing we speech astir often but the world is that amended proviso tin alteration lives," helium said.

“One successful 5 radical bash not permission location arsenic overmuch arsenic they would similar to, due to the fact that of information astir a deficiency of nationalist toilets – it’s called the ‘loo leash’.

"When it comes to the transport network, that tin mean immoderate radical deciding not to marque a peculiar journey."

Locations shortlisted by TfL for caller toilets:

• Camden Road Overground station
• Clapton Overground station
• New Cross Gate London Overground station
• South Tottenham London Overground station
• White Hart Lane Overground station
• Morden Underground station
• Hammersmith Underground station

It said it recognised that determination was presently a "gap successful provision" and said providing toilets was "critical to galore customers".

It added that it was alert that the availability of toilets sometimes determined "whether a lawsuit tin question by nationalist transport astatine all".

Some toilets successful the web person been closed oregon entree constricted owed to vandalism, but TfL said it was looking to "improve availability" of those facilities and was moving connected caller designs to guarantee the toilets were "less prone to abuse".

The Mayor of London, Sadiq Khan, said the concern would assistance to make a "better, fairer London for everyone".