The Inconvenience Committee

The Inconvenience Committee is a pressure group founded in 2005 by London professional Blue Badge tourist guides, with a view to influencing local councils within London to provide more, free, clean, attended public conveniences.
The Inconvenience Committee was established by British Blue Badge guides from both professional guiding organisations - the Guild of Registered Tourist Guides (GRTG) and the union affiliated Association of Professional Tourist Guides (APTG). The Committee came into being as a direct response to Westminster City Council privatising the public lavatories around Parliament Square, a World Heritage Site and popular first stop for tourists visiting London.
The Committee argued that tourists are often elderly, often have not had a chance to obtain British coinage and have arrived in London after extended travel by coach from docks or airports.
The Committee has also consistently encouraged Westminster Council to open more public conveniences - the Council claims to have more WCs than any other London district - but is hamstrung by the simple fact that Westminster sees little income from business rates. The Inconvenience Committee sees a larger fight with getting the Government to recognise the true cost of tourism services.
Although unsuccessful in reversing the Council's decision to privatise the Parliament Square loos, the Committee claims some credit for the Council's decision to open a free public facility at Oxford Circus and in discouraging the City of London from privatising more WCs within the jurisdiction of the Corporation of London.
The Inconvenience Committee has argued that the provision of free, plentiful and attended WCs and washrooms, is a major deterrent to the spread of pandemics, a threat to which London as a global crossroads and destination city, is particularly vulnerable. As such the Committee's philosophy echoes that of Professor Clara Greed, lecturer in planned urban environments at Bristol University, who seeks to place WCs and washing facilities at the heart of urban environments as a way of revitalising run-down and 'unwelcoming' city centres.
Recently the Committee's initiative has suffered a setback with the publication of a Government Select Committee report on public toilets, which supported a policy already in place in a few London boroughs of encouraging fast food providers and cafes to open their WCs to the passing public: obviously not a feasible policy for crowded and much visited areas, large groups or the very poor or homeless.
The Inconvenience Committee is made up of GTRG members Eileen Cox, Alison Bennett and APTG members Dr Ros Stanwell-Smith, Hugh Dickson,
Simon Rodway and Adrienne Oddey.

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