Town Centre Toilets Scoop Awards Yet Again

I worry sometimes...

Before the 20p charge I admit the toilets in town were spotless, clean and staff were very friendly and helpful.

Since the introduction of the charge I have noticed the standards slip dramatically- they are always smelly and nearly always dirty and there are'nt any members of staff around.

But well done for remembering to clean the toilets on the day of inspection- yet another brave sneaky move by CBC

Our frontline staff receive regular compliments from customers about how clean and tidy the toilets are. Where complaints are received, the Council acts upon them as soon as possible and makes changes to improve satisfaction and ensure excellent customer standards are maintained.

This is borne out by the fact that Loo of the Year inspectors turned up without announcement to judge the toilets and awarded us the top accolade and we achieved 100% compliance for our customer service excellence award.

Since charging was introduced in May this year, the Council has only received 22 complaints from the 138,450 people who have used the facilities and only compliments on the cleanliness of the toilets.

This award beggars belief. I was recently forced to pay the ridiculous 20p charge when both my wife and I were caught short.  Instead of paying 20p each we went to the 'Family/Disabled' toilet as we also had a pushchair with us. 

The state of that room appalled both of us. In fact we both tried our hardest not to touch anything for fear of what we might catch.  After being forced to touch the door handle to exit, luckily my wife had some hand disinfectant in her bag to clean ourselves with.

If these toilets can be awarded 5 stars I would hate to think what a 1 star toilet would look like.

By the way - paying 20p to use a toilet is a disgrace. The number of people I have seen urinating against a wall outside of the toilets is no surprise.

The toilets are attended in the day with monitoring and cleaning of the whole site ongoing throughout the day. 

Both the Markets Manager, and the toilet supervisor also make spot checks to ensure that the cleaning regime is maintained and all faults or complaints are recorded and direct action taken at the time. It must be assumed, therefore, that the complainants must have closely followed a previous user who abused the facility. 

Please note that the inspector who visited the toilets to judge them for the award was completyely unanounced, no special effort was made in anticipation of their visit.

If you're not going listen to people's complaints, then nothing is going to improve is it! I appreciate the visits are totally random & not pre-arranged, but I have also used the public toilets when they have been disgustingly dirty! When I have seen staff members who work there actually on-site, they're usually sitting outside smoking & talking, as opposed to working & doing what they should be doing, CLEANING the toilets!! As for the 20p charge.......I only ever had to pay that much once & that was London Victoria! No WAY is there any comparison between the 2 other than the price!! I go to Tescos now in Loughborough & use their CLEAN toilets for free!!!

I am sorry to hear that you had a less than satisfactory visit to the Public conveniences in the town and I can assure you that we do listen to people making complaints and they are taken very seriously. 

All complaints are subjected to an investigation, the findings of which are used to improve the service further and, hopefully, eliminate the causes that could form the basis of a complaint. I thank you for your comments and as a result the Toilet staff have been spoken to with a view to ensuring that the cleaning regime is adhered to, as is set out in the cleaning programme. Also staff  have been advised as to the Council's smoking Policy. 

With regard to the 20p charge this was put in place following a public consultation and has made the difference as to whether the council could continue to provide Public Conveniences and has been mirrored in many other towns throughout the country. I hope that I have gone some way to re-assure you that we are striving to maintain the high level of service that is expected by visitors to Loughborough Town Centre.

i have to disagree with the above comments i use the town Toilets  and i have never yet used them and found them Dirty they are always spotless and i always see the staff working very hard i for one am very proud of the public toilets in the town center as i travel all over the country and have never found any that even come close to how clean and well maintained they are and would like to say a big well done to all the Staff on the 5 star Award well deserved

I use the Public Toilets in the Town and i have to Agree with the last comment left they are a credit to the hard working staff and i am also proud of the public toilets as i have never been to any others that are so well looked after and the attendants are so friendly and extremely helpfull i do think that it may be helpfull to members of the public if the attendants wore a uniform like they do in the Haymarket Toilets (Navy blue Trousers and matching Navy blue Top) as this makes them stand out more so they can be identified more easily and prehaps Name Badges that can be read by members of the public then if there is any complaints they can easily identifiy the Attendant to make there complaint then if they are still not satisfied then they can take there name and put the complaint into the council but i dont think that this would ever be the case as the staff you have working those toilets in my opinion work very very hard and deserve all the credit they can get and all the Awards i have seen displayed up on the walls of both the towns public toilets are very well deserved in my opinion well done to all the staff who work them