‘The lavatories are now a rancid and intimidating environment for women’

• I NOTICED the ladies public lavatories in Camden Town have become “gender neutral”.

This seems a surprising decision given that Camden Town is a very busy night life spot with high levels of public drunkenness and drug taking.

The lavatories are now a rancid and intimidating environment for women.

I’d like to know who took this decision and when? And was there any public consultation?

I imagine whoever made this decision would respond to the above by saying that the lavatories are cleaned at regular intervals throughout the day.

They are still filthy and stink.

Probably they’d also say there’s no evidence that women are endangered in gender-neutral lavatories. This would probably be because most women wouldn’t dare use them.

They might also say that there are separate facilities for men and women fairly nearby, but to me that is irrelevant.

As it happens I’m very much in favour of providing gender-neutral facilities but think ideally the gents (urinals and all) should be designated “gender neutral” and the ladies must be retained for the exclusive use of women.

Ironically in last week’s CNJ Camden Labour announced its intention to “maintain public toilets and launch a new board to help women affected by violence”.

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