New toilets at London Bridge

[Benjwri]

Network Rail has announced the installation of 38 new toilets at London Bridge station:

We are carrying out a £4.8m project at London Bridge station to add a further 38 toilets to improve the experience for all passengers.

We are installing more toilets to meet passenger demand.

The new toilet facilities will be a mixture of female units (23 including ambulant, family accessible and standard), male units (12 including standard, accessible, ambulant) and 3 unisex toilets: accessible, accessible with baby change and gender neutral.

The new toilets use state of the art technology to reduce cost, CO2e emissions and water consumption.

It’s unclear what side of the gatelines these are, but regardless I’m left questioning how they are managing to spend £4.8 million on this project? Commercial toilet installations for around 10 toilets is normally in the high tens of thousands or just into the hundreds of thousands. I struggle to see so much more is being spent on this.

 

[Pinza-C55]

Sounds like a load of poop to me.

 

[Wolfie]

Network Rail has announced the installation of 38 new toilets at London Bridge station:


It’s unclear what side of the gatelines these are, but regardless I’m left questioning how they are managing to spend £4.8 million on this project? Commercial toilet installations for around 10 toilets is normally in the high tens of thousands or just into the hundreds of thousands. I struggle to see so much more is being spent on this.

Complete speculation but are parts of the station listed? Also is there access to sewerage and water in the necessary location or are those having to be added?

 

[MrB]

Toilets will be located before the gateline on Stainer St, hoardings for the work are already up.

 

[RUK]

The taps and hand-soap dispensers in the provided images look like the awful ones at the fairly recently refurbished London Liverpool Street toilets - the sensors for them and for the under-mirror hand dryers seem to be oddly far back, so you have to wave one hand about further back while wetting/drying the other hand - it’s hard to do both at once, and sometimes they simply don’t work. I’ve seen the soap dispensers at Liverpool Street broken and hanging off at an angle, and it isn’t uncommon for the taps and hand-dryers to be not working, or their sensors seemingly simply not working, even if you wave your hand about further back, which usually seems to work. The urinals in the images also seem to be very oddly narrow. The urinals at London Liverpool Street are often broken, too, with maybe more than half of them being out of use sometimes, which makes me wonder if Network Rail cheaped out on all of the equipment which they installed in the toilets.

 

[lookapigeon]

If the Liverpool Street ones are the same design as the ones in Victoria, the heavy doors on the cubicles seem to get broken easily, I saw a few in the men's sans door.

 

[alistairlees]

Network Rail has announced the installation of 38 new toilets at London Bridge station:


It’s unclear what side of the gatelines these are, but regardless I’m left questioning how they are managing to spend £4.8 million on this project? Commercial toilet installations for around 10 toilets is normally in the high tens of thousands or just into the hundreds of thousands. I struggle to see so much more is being spent on this.

I'm afraid that Network Rail is an organisation that measures its success by how much it spends, rather than how muuch it delivers. This is why you always see info about £xxm expenditure, rather than what the benefits are, what the need / requirement is, or how this compares with expenditure in other industries.

 

[Oldgaloot]

Maybe they'll so something at Stratford. It needs it.

 

[davews]

What are the timescales? I see the ones at Waterloo are now not scheduled to open until August 2024, they had better be good for it to take them 18 months!

 

[NSEWonderer]

£126,315 roughly per toilet(ignoring the sinks and dryers etc ), some expensive flushes I see coming.

 

[Mikey C]

I was going to mention this as I saw the area on Saturday, but forgot!

The existing toilets are ridiculously small, a ludicrous choice to spend an absolute fortune on rebuilding London Bridge, and then speccing such a pathetic facility, as the only toilets at the station, especially when many trains serving London Bridge either don't have toilets (or they're pretty grotty).

 

[Recessio]

Maybe they'll so something at Stratford. It needs it.

A thermonuclear bomb? Genuinely the worst public toilets I've ever seen, if we're talking about the ones by the DLR platforms. Regularly looks like the toilets from that scene in the film Trainspotting...

I was going to mention this as I saw the area on Saturday, but forgot!

The existing toilets are ridiculously small, a ludicrous choice to spend an absolute fortune on rebuilding London Bridge, and then speccing such a pathetic facility, as the only toilets at the station, especially when many trains serving London Bridge either don't have toilets (or they're pretty grotty).

I also think the current ones aren't that easy to find either. I agree with you, hopefully these new ones rectify the baffling decisions made with the current ones.

 

[Trackman]

£126,315 roughly per toilet(ignoring the sinks and dryers etc ), some expensive flushes I see coming.

Smart toilets apparently (??), saving energy water etc.. NR must get their money back in 2097 or something.

Genuinely the worst public toilets I've ever seen, if we're talking about the ones by the DLR platforms. Regularly looks like the toilets from that scene in the film Trainspotting...

Might be worthy of a new thread this. Hull Paragon springs to mind when you mention the film 'trainspotting'.

 

[Mikey C]

A thermonuclear bomb? Genuinely the worst public toilets I've ever seen, if we're talking about the ones by the DLR platforms. Regularly looks like the toilets from that scene in the film Trainspotting...

The old ones on the through platforms at London Bridge were pretty grim. Handy though.

One platform was missing a gents, as that was destroyed by an IRA bomb...

 

[PeterC]

Maybe they'll so something at Stratford. It needs it.

It's been a while since I needed sanitary relief there (pre covid) but then I had to trek out to Westfield as the station ones were closed and appeared to be permanently so.

 

[Trackman]

The old ones on the through platforms at London Bridge were pretty grim. Handy though.

One platform was missing a gents, as that was destroyed by an IRA bomb...

There were a gents on P2 I think (a brick building with urinals in it), I remember needing the loo and thought I would wait until I got to the platform.. it had been surgically removed a week earlier and no trace was to be seen, remember being stood on the spot now. I just avoid London bridge now, they have made a right hash of it.

 

[Blindtraveler]

All of network rails recent toilet projects seem to be disaster areas in the making for one reason or another. They spent ages and lots doing the ones at Edinburgh but when I was in there not so long ago they were various bits not working and tiles hanging off the wall and all sorts, embarrassing for an 18 month old set of toilets. If you ask me I don't think it will be all that long until it goes full circle and they start charging for them again purely so the upkeep and maintenance can be done properly

All that said, I welcome these upgrade London bridge who's provision has seemed inadequate to me

 

[Peter Mugridge]

All of network rails recent toilet projects seem to be disaster areas in the making for one reason or another.

They're basically making a bog of it...?


Another station that needs more capacity is St Pancras - specifically the set of toilets immediately opposite the Eurostar arrivals area; in this case it was actually built with enough capacity but they then removed just over half of it...

 

[lookapigeon]

What are the timescales? I see the ones at Waterloo are now not scheduled to open until August 2024, they had better be good for it to take them 18 months!

Takes the piss - how long does it take to rip out one set of bogs (and associated hardware) and put in some replacements?! The new toilets in the sidings were a nirvana when they first opened. Now they're getting pretty battered due to the heavy use of having no M/F toilets in the main station building.

 

[BJames]

If the Liverpool Street ones are the same design as the ones in Victoria, the heavy doors on the cubicles seem to get broken easily, I saw a few in the men's sans door.

Liverpool Street toilets are not the same design as Victoria (they're pretty standard doors and nowhere near as heavy).

Hopefully these are designed well but regardless London Bridge's existing toilets are generally unpleasant (or if not physically unpleasant then way too busy) - so it's good to see additional provision being installed.

 

[Wolfie]

Liverpool Street toilets are not the same design as Victoria (they're pretty standard doors and nowhere near as heavy).

Hopefully these are designed well but regardless London Bridge's existing toilets are generally unpleasant (or if not physically unpleasant then way too busy) - so it's good to see additional provision being installed.

The toilets at Euston are way worse than those at London Bridge and in an absolutely stupid location.

 

[Kenny G]

Maybe they'll so something at Stratford. It needs it.

The Stratford toilets are an absolute disgrace. Combined with the lack of any toilets in West Ham station and Barking facilities often being closed and you have a toilet desert. Males at West Ham often urinate off the end of the C2C platform which will shortly be directly in line of sight of the flats in the new housing development.

 

[Wolfie]

The Stratford toilets are an absolute disgrace. Combined with the lack of any toilets in West Ham station and Barking facilities often being closed and you have a toilet desert. Males at West Ham often urinate off the end of the C2C platform which will shortly be directly in line of sight of the flats in the new housing development.

Disgrace is an understatement. They are absolutely disgusting.

 

[Mikey C]

The toilets at Euston are way worse than those at London Bridge and in an absolutely stupid location.

The Euston toilets are at least a decent size.

Another station that needs more capacity is St Pancras - specifically the set of toilets immediately opposite the Eurostar arrivals area; in this case it was actually built with enough capacity but they then removed just over half of it...

The toilets down the domestic end of STP are too small as well, certainly the ladies toilets judging from the enormous queue.

 

[Cowley]

Thread reopened for @Mikey C update.

 

[Mikey C]

The new toilets have finally opened, 18 months later, when they were apparently meant to be open in late spring 2024!

Naturally they look very nice inside, though not especially large, especially when you consider the non rail passenger use of them. Handy for the through platforms, though the lack of toilets inside the gateline still feels like a major omission for a through station, especially when many of the trains don't have toilets on board.

New toilets at London Bridge station - Network Rail

Our £4.8m project to add new toilets at London Bridge station will improve the station experience for our passengers.

www.networkrail.co.uk

(The photo shows the washing facilities in the gents)

 

[AY1975]

Are the new toilets as well as or instead of the existing ones in the passageway going from Stainer Street to Joiner Street (or at least that's where the existing ones are according to the London Bridge station map on the National Rail website)? I presume as well as.

The original press release quoted in entry #1 above refers to a mixture of standard, accessible, and "ambulant" units. I can understand the first two of those, but what do they mean by "ambulant"?

 

[Railcar]

Are the new toilets as well as or instead of the existing ones in the passageway going from Stainer Street to Joiner Street (or at least that's where the existing ones are according to the London Bridge station map on the National Rail website)? I presume as well as.

Hopefully as well as. The existing toilets were insufficient for women. Many a time there has been a queue of women waiting in line into the passageway, while the men stroll in and out again. I understand that the new loos have more cubicles for women than for men, thus recognising the design flaw in the existing toilets.

 

[Benjwri]

Are the new toilets as well as or instead of the existing ones in the passageway going from Stainer Street to Joiner Street (or at least that's where the existing ones are according to the London Bridge station map on the National Rail website)? I presume as well as.

The original press release quoted in entry #1 above refers to a mixture of standard, accessible, and "ambulant" units. I can understand the first two of those, but what do they mean by "ambulant"?

As well as. I believe they are on Stainer Street.

 

[jon81uk]

The original press release quoted in entry #1 above refers to a mixture of standard, accessible, and "ambulant" units. I can understand the first two of those, but what do they mean by "ambulant"?

Ambulant is someone who is not normally a wheelchair user so doesn't need a fully accessible toilet but might need some adaptions such as handrails, an outward opening door and more space, but not as much space as a wheelchair would. This seems to summarise well https://www.cubiclesolutions.co.uk/...nce-between-an-ambulant-and-a-disabled-toilet