Cornelius McAfee: ‘So many people are limited in their ability to go out because of the need for public lavatories’

LOOS for Islington have spent almost two years campaigning for better public toilet provision in the borough, but now say their efforts have become “stagnant” due to a “lack of opposition and accountability”.

Islington Council pledged 15 months ago to invest £1.2m to improve public toilets in the borough. Since then, they have only managed to replace one toilet – an automated loo in Newington Green.

In December 2023 the council admitted that the Newington Green loo was the only toilet they had started fixing out of a possible eight. At the time, they said the delay was due to “technical issues” and promised that all the toilets would be working by summer 2024.

Cornelius McAfee became a spokesperson for Loos for Islington after he underwent chemotherapy for a cancer diagnosis. This left him needing to use public toilet facilities more often, at which point he noticed the severe lack of availability in Islington.

“They don’t seem to regard it as a priority,” he said of the council. “They have their own pet projects but they don’t seem to be concerned about the infrastructure of the borough. They come out with this continual bleating ‘it’s the Tories, it’s the Tories’, but it’s not, it’s priorities”.

Mr McAfee added that the lack of public toilets poses a health hazard. “The lavatories that haven’t been upgraded are medieval in their level of filth,” he said.

The toilet campaigner released a video last week in collaboration with Age UK to highlight the public loo problem across London.

“So many people are limited in their ability to go out because of the need for public lavatories,” he said.

Loos for Islington is now trying to collect 2,000 signatures so they can have a “proper question and response with the council”. They will be at Chapel Market in two weeks’ time, asking people to sign their petition.