Cape Town - Public toilets in the Cape Town CBD are few and far between and are only open during normal working hours. In fact, the City only has four ablution blocks in the area.
These can be found on Greenmarket Square, Thibault Square, Riebeeck Street and the Grand Parade.
Many people caught short in the CBD before 8am and after 5pm have had to make use of facilities wherever they can find them, including openly on the streets.
Despite this, Mayco member for community services and health, Patricia van der Ross, said: “There are at present no plans to have additional toilets within the CBD.”
She said her department was not aware of any requests for additional public ablutions, and the City outsources the maintenance of the four existing ablution blocks and doesn’t know how many people use them.
With regard to encouraging members of the public to use the provided facilities instead of street corners, trees and alleyways, Van Der Ross said: “Apart from providing well-maintained, clean and accessible signage indicating where these facilities are, the department has no other means to encourage the use of public ablution facilities.”
However, the Cape Town Central City Improvement District (CCID) has recently been running a project to alleviate the chronic shortage of ablution facilities in downtown Cape Town.
The pilot is meant to provide the CCID the opportunity to understand the costs and challenges with regard to operating a public ablution facility in a busy city centre with heavy foot traffic.
CCID chief executive Tasso Evangelinos said that since their installation, the toilets have been used by nearly 20 000 people.
“While some visitors can get relief in bars and restaurants, other people don’t have access to these venues, including the CBD’s homeless community.”
He said that between May 30 and August 29 this year, 19 996 visitors to the CBD used the facilities.
Evangelinos further broke down the figures and said that 13 187 people had used the Adderley Street toilets while 6 809 had used those on Longmarket Street.
The serviced toilets were open seven days a week, Monday to Sunday, from 7am to 11pm.
