Monday 15 November 2010

Public Toilets, St Leonard's Place (Exhibition Square), York


 What goes up must come down.  After the dizzying heights and rarefied air of the Hotel D’Angleterre, we nosedive in to the damp, dark hole that contains the council-run public toilets in York.  These toilets are encompassed within the emblematic city walls, attract a lot of tourists, and should by rights be clean and pleasant, giving the visitor an overall positive impression of the city.   Instead, they are scary and unwholesome.
We remember these toilets, from a previous visit, as being a rather decent.  However, on our recent visit, the door was locked, and the only toilet available was what appears to have been intended as the disabled toilet.

A glimpse of the toilets through the locked door
  The first thing we notice is that there is no lock on the door.  Not an auspicious beginning.  The toilet itself is made of stainless steel, which we don't mind, being a hygienic material.  The loo roll is covered.  That's about all we have to say on a positive note.

Though we don't dare use the toilet, on account of the inexplicable lack of a lock on the door, we wash our hands vigorously, even obsessively, suspecting these facilities of harbouring, if not actually cholera, at least quite a few unpleasant microbes. 
Push the button for a few drops of cold water

There is plenty of soap, but only a miserly trickle of cold water, and the whole thing is unbearably grim.  We whip out our antibacterial wipes, and wash our hands of the whole thing.


Points: 0/15

1 comment:

  1. All the public toilets in York are in a right state due to the council not doing there job and actually cleaning them they all stink, the bins are never emptied and there are drug parofinalia including dirty needles left by the council employees.
    The reason the main toilets in York are always locked and the tiny night toilets with no locks are the only ones that are open is I am sure the people who are supposed to keep the toilets clean but never do Finnish work early it's like a lottery trying to gues what time they will be locked I live in haxby and the toilets there seem to shut earlier by the day.
    When I was waiting for a bus home I found exhibition square toilets were closed at 5.05 pm. I made a call to council to enquire what time they shut I was informed 8pm then last week I was in town again and low and behold shut early again I have just finnished my letter of complaint to the council and will keep complaining until they do something about the toilets I am also in the process of writing an article in the local paper and starting a pertition to send to the council.

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