Lack of signs to Uckfield lavatories criticised

Poor directional signing to lavatories available for public use in Uckfield town centre has been criticised.

The town has a “community toilet scheme” organised by Wealden District Council which has closed council-run lavatories.

The community scheme enables people to use facilities at shops and other premises during their normal opening hours. The council makes a small payment to the establishment.

Residents have asked why there is no clear, central signage to the participating businesses so visitors can see where there are toilets which can be used by the public.

Barry Horsman asked at the annual town meeting if participating businesses were checked initially for suitability and regularly to ensure standards were being maintained and who was responsible.

“Uckfield needs to portray itself as attractive to customers and visitors and lack of adequate quality public toilets detracts from this objective,” he said.

The then town mayor, Cllr John Carvey agreed that the advertising of available toilets was not satisfactory.

District councillor Claire Dowling said that public toilets were discussed at many meetings but it was not financially possible to continue to fund the public toilets, was why the community toilet scheme was first trialled at Forest Row.

Cllr Dowling agreed that the signage was inadequate and had been pushing for improvements and information regarding participating businesses, especially at the bus station.

She understood the signs had been enlarged and improved and should already be in place in the windows of the businesses.

Resident Dorothy Sparks asked if Wealden council could put a notice on the empty toilet block in Luxford car park informing people of the location of those businesses in the community toilet scheme as the nearby Luxford Centre had problems with people walking into the building wanting to use the toilets when the centre was not part of the scheme.

Town councillor John Collins said the Luxford Centre had been asked about the possibility of joining the scheme. The management committee said it was not a ‘drop in’ centre but a club and felt that due to the way it was staffed the centre was not a suitable and it would be wrong to open to the public.