• EVERY weekend, day and night, up to 150,000 visitors throng Camden Town, patronising the dozens of bars, pubs, clubs and restaurants in the 1.5miles between Chalk Farm tube and Mornington Crescent.

Much alcohol is consumed, and the results have to go somewhere. Queues build up at pub and bar loos and towards the end of the evening those in need inevitably seek relief elsewhere, often in the residental streets running off Camden High Street.

After years of complaints by residents about public urination (and worse), Camden Council has installed, at great expense, three urilifts, which rise majestically from the nether regions during evening hours. In response to further complaints a plastic receptacle (usually blocked with rubbish) was attached to the wall by Morrisons’s petrol station.

Despite this investment four facilities are plainly ludicrously inadequate for the footfall in Camden Town (the public toilets at Camden Town tube are, of course, shut overnight).

We have the extraordinary situation of billionaire property developers and music promoters making millions out of the area while the streets are allowed to become a public toilet in the early hours.

Licensees already pay a late-night levy which allows (just) for policing the borough’s night-time economy.

Isn’t it time Camden shamed Camden Town property developers into paying up for a number of trailer-mounted loo suites, of the sort seen at open-air events, to be sited around the area at weekends? With users paying a charge via contactless cards these could even be self-financing.

For five years Camden Safer Neighbourhood Board has supported pressure from residents/council tax payers, who quite reasonably never expected their area to become a 24/7 free-fire zone, or turn into Europe’s most famous drugs market.

More recently, the Camden Town night-time economy has shown certain encouraging signs of becoming a better neighbour. It’s only right that civilised toilet facilities should be part of this.

CHRIS FAGG
Vice-Chair Camden Safer Neighbourhood Board