Public toilets at Bury Knowle Park – update

We are advised by the City Council’s Streetscene team that:

At BKP Five of the nine cubicles are completed and the flooring contractor is on site today and tomorrow with the aim of completion before the weekend. By this time the only facilities out of action will be those where the doors are desperately in need of replacement- so much so that members of the public have been getting stuck inside. These doors are on order and should be replaced in the next couple of weeks.

Once all of this is complete we will be deep cleaning the toilets to give the tiling a bit of a ‘lift’.

Bury Knowle Park toilets – latest info

Here is the latest information we have on the toilets re-furb at Bury Knowle Park from the City Council. We have asked for much better communication in future.

Please accept my apologies for not letting you know we were planning on doing some improvements to the toilets at Bury Knowle Park.

I am sure you are aware that the toilets are very well used, also they do suffer from mindless vandalism which we do our best to keep on top of, so much so that we did get an award from the Loo of the year award for the last 2 years.

We had noticed that the doors are damaged, a few missing toilet roll holders and also the flooring was damaged and had started to become a tripping hazard.

With this in mind, we put an order through to our flooring contractors and asked that they looked at the flooring and made arrangements to get the repairs completed ASAP for safety reasons, also to assist in getting the spend in this financial year.

They were asked to keep 50% of the toilets open whilst they undertook the work, which is what they did try to do, but for a couple of days the 50% they took out only left 2 and the disabled because the other 3 were vandalised and also awaiting other repairs.

I went and had a look yesterday, the signage certainly can be improved and will be when we start to get 7 new doors fitted in the near future; also a lesson learnt that as and when we take out facilities rather than just a sign saying out of order – we should give more appropriate information – plus let local councillors know we are doing this.

The flooring will be completed in the next couple of days, we will still have 3 toilets out of action due to the doors needing replacing, but everything else will be open and fit for purpose.

We have also exchanged the 2 metal signs on the outside of the building as the old ones were damaged due to the amount of time we have had to remove graffiti of them, so numbers are now available so members of the public can get hold of us easier.

Bury Knowle toilets get a makeover… and not before time!

Toilet man womenIcon made by Scott de Jonge from Flaticon.com

 

There is good news on the BK toilets front!  We have been asking for these to be upgraded for some time but the money pot was raided for de luxe loos in the City. We finally have confirmation that this will go ahead in the New Year. The block will get new w.c. pans and cisterns, new washer dryers, new flooring, new fittings and fixtures such as toilet roll holders, waste bins etc and all repair issues will be attended to as well. We have also asked for a 24 hour facility and squared this with our neighbourhood police team – at last our shopping centre will have a public toilet open after 5pm!

 

Pissed off with toilet closures?

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If you would like to sign a petition against the closure of public toilets in Oxford, including the toilets at Headington Hill Park, please click on this link.

David and I are campaigning for improvements to be made to our existing public toilets and for opening hours to be extended – if other councils can manage this for less money, then we think Oxford City Council should too

Brookes and toilets – have your say

The North East Area Committee is meeting on Tuesday 18 August at 6.00 pm at the Royal British Legion hall, Hadow Road.

Items on the agenda include the review of public conveniences within the City (including Bury Knowle) and consideration of the Oxford Brookes University planning application 09/00695/FUL. The committee is able to make comments on the latter application for consideration by the Strategic Development and Control Committee which is meeting on 26 August

The NEAC agenda is available here

All members of the public are allowed to speak at the Open Session about these or any other agenda item or issue. You will need to arrive slightly earlier than the start time and fill in a Speaker’s form, giving your name and indicating what subject you would like to address the meeting about.

We are expecting a very lively (and lengthy) meeting

Have your say on public toilets!

Oxford City Council is running two citywide consultations at the moment on their consultation website. The first is on finding out what our residents key priorities are and the second is on public toilets provision in the city. To access it, and to register your vote, please click here.

It’s really important for us to hear your views and gives us evidence to show that people’s views really count!

Other consultations that are taking place can also be found at the same web address.