Cornelius McAfee of Loos for Islington getting signatures in Holloway

LOO campaigners have thrown their hands up and asked “what have you been doing all this time?” after they discovered Town Hall chiefs have only just started repairing one toilet – a year after they were shamed into apologising for having NO public loos.

At a public meeting in January, health and social care lead councillor Nurullah Turan apologised for a service he called “not good enough”, after it emerged all the borough’s public toilets were broken, and pledged to spend £1.2million to fix them.

But campaigners were left fuming this week when loo chiefs admitted they had only just started fixing one toilet out of a possible eight – and blamed the delay on “technical issues”. Islington now says the loos will be working by summer 2024.

Mike Sanderson and Leonie Philip of the Loos for Islington campaign

“It shows a real lack of interest, I think.” said Cornelius McAfee from Loos for Islington, who went on a loo audit last week to find all but one of the borough’s toilets were still not working – although the council claim three are. The toilet in Newington Green is set to open in January 2024. Three specialist loos for disabled users will be ready in March.

“Why are the tenders only going out now? They said it would all be done by now,” the 70-year-old retired teacher from Archway added. He became a loo campaigner after chemotherapy for cancer led to him needing to use the bathroom more frequently and with more urgency.

Arsenal TV’s Ty – Taiwo Ogunlabi – signing the loos petition with Cornelius McAfee

Mr McAfee will be collecting signatures at the Nag’s Head market in Holloway Road this Saturday for Loos for Islington.

John McGeachy, from Age UK London, added his voice to the call to reopen Islington’s mothballed Victorian loos and warned Islington’s new automated toilets would be likely to “fail again in the future”.

A council spokesperson said: “Due to technical issues, the installation of the automated toilets has been unfortunately delayed.

“We know the delay with the toilets is frustrating for many people in the borough, and we are working hard to deliver these new facilities.”