What work have you done to improve access to public toilets for Londoners this summer?

Public toilets are a vital part of our social infrastructure, giving Londoners and visitors to our city the confidence to move around and spend time in public spaces. I understand the importance of access to public toilets, especially as social activity this summer is more likely to be held outside as a result of pandemic restrictions. I will continue to take a range of actions to promote the provision of free publicly accessible toilets in our city.

My new London Plan is helping to ensure that there are more free, clean, safe and accessible public toilets available in London. This is the first time the London Plan has required new public toilets. Policy S6 requires proposals for large-scale commercial developments open to the public to provide free publicly accessible toilets and to secure their management in the future. The Public Land Charter, which is due to be published this autumn, will state that publicly accessible toilets are amenities that must be strongly supported under the public welcome principle.

These changes will make a real difference to the provision of public toilets in the future, but we are also working to provide more public toilets through direct funding right now. Investment from my Good Growth Fund is creating or refurbishing more than 250 toilet units, including more than 180 that are fully accessible, in key locations across London.

Where we have public toilets on our own estate, we are working to ensure they are as accessible as possible. We know that having to pay to access a public toilet can be a real issue, so fees have been removed from all toilet facilities on London Overground, TfL Rail and London Underground. TfL will continue to review opportunities to improve toilet facilities when undertaking station upgrades.

GLA officers have been working with partners from local authorities, BIDs, businesses and retailers to coordinate multi-agency activity to ensure a safe and confident reopening. This includes reopening all the toilets across the TfL estate and encouraging local authorities and Royal Parks to reopen and maintain toilets wherever possible.

Mr Mayor, thank you very much for that. You have clearly made progress since January this year [2021] when I asked you about removal of charges for using Underground toilets and you said you would do it where possible. It is good to hear all that progress.

Where toilets are not free - for example, those run by Westminster Council at Green Park - are you working with Westminster to get it to make those loos free?

Can I just put on record my thanks for your lobbying on this? Again, a good example of cross-party working.

The challenge councils have is they need the revenue from the fees to pay for the maintenance, and there is also concern around antisocial behaviour. I just want to be frank with you about some of the challenges not just Westminster Council, but other partners we speak to have. We are trying to work with them to try to address the issues they are raising about the reason why they need the revenues.

I met with the charity Muscular Dystrophy recently and I am sure you are aware it is working with the Ministry for Housing, Communities and Local Government (MHCLG) on launching a £30 million fund for Changing Places toilets. Will you be applying for some of this funding and will you be helping our boroughs in their applications from a strategic cross-London level so that we can make sure that all our public parks and places have really the best accessible toilets nearby?

Yes. I just put on record my thanks to the Government’s new Changing Places scheme. We are working with London’s local authorities and encouraging them to opt in to the scheme and to bid for a proportion of the new investment and to boost the number of Changing Places facilities in their communities. As you say, it is a positive step improving access, particularly for those who are disabled, who require assisted-use facilities.

You may think I am a bit obsessed with public toilets, Mr Mayor.

No, not at all.

I know I have asked you a lot of questions about them in the past and even moved a budget Amendment proposing more toilets, which was actually quite popular in this Chamber. This is a really serious issue for Londoners, parents, people experiencing incontinence and other health issues, women, older and disabled people. The impact of losing so many informal services like toilets in cafés and pubs over the lockdown has put many more Londoners on what they describe as a ‘loo leash’. It has restricted how far people have been able to travel from home, which is obviously not right.

Would you consider investing in more loos for Londoners who are unlikely to be able to travel out of London this summer - for instance, temporary toilets like those that were put in for Euro 2020 - so that people enjoying outdoor spaces this summer can enjoy themselves with dignity and without resorting to weeing in bushes, which we know is happening in some places?

There has never been an occasion when I have not taken your questions on this seriously because I understand the importance of them for quality-of-life issues. I am grateful, genuinely.

We have funded a number of toilets. I mentioned the Good Growth Fund and 250 toilets being refurbished or brought into use, including more than 180 that are fully accessible. If there is an issue of helping partners, we are more than happy to do so where we can, but I have to be honest. There are concerns around our budget. That is one of the reasons why we have sympathy with councils or others who have challenges with the issue of how they maintain public toilets, but it is a really important issue. We did, for example, when it came to the dignity of bus drivers, bring in the toilets when I first became Mayor. Where we can, we will. Often they are quite cheap to do and we have to make sure that we take the residents with us because sometimes public toilets can lead to issues that residents are not happy about. Where we can, we are more than happy to work with partners.

Thank you very much. I am almost out of time and I wonder if you could just write to me to let me know where these 250 toilet units, in particular the 180 that are accessible, are and when they will be ready.

I am more than happy to do so, Chair. Thank you.