Toilet town
Over a number of years, it has been brought to our attention that a fair number of people do not visit Sheffield City Centre, or find it difficult to do so safely, due to its lack of publicly accessible toilet facilities. So, we thought we’d investigate the options that are available.
Our first port of call is Sheffield BID’s ‘LAVS’ scheme. Sheffield BID (Sheffield Business Improvement District) aims to help promote independent business in the city centre and can be found on Twitter @SheffieldBID You can read more about the scheme here:
https://sheffieldcitycentre.com/city-stuff/lavs-1
It currently includes accessible toilet facilities, as below, but they are looking for more to sign up all the time.
- · Millennium Gallery, Arundel Street (open Mon-Sat 8.00am to 5pm (8pm Thurs) and 11am to 4pm Sunday)
- The Moor Market, 77 The Moor (open Mon-Sat 8.30am to 5.30pm). The facility at The Moor Market also provides specially-equipped Changing Places toilets for people with more complex disabilities.
In addition to these two The City Council is currently providing temporary public conveniences in the Peace Gardens, outside Brown’s restaurant. There are 6 cubicles there including an accessible one. We have been unable to ascertain how long these will be available for.
Public toilets are also available at travel hubs such as the Midland Mainline Station at Sheaf Street, Sheffield Bus Interchange at Pond Street and the Central Library.
There are also customer toilets available at Marks and Spencer, Fargate and Q-Park car parks at Church Street, Castlegate, Durham Road and Riverside.
We understand that some people are reluctant to use venues where it is suggested that they “must be a customer” so I emailed a number of venues including Marks and Spencer and they replied,
“The usage of our facilities for non-purchasing customers is up to the store's discretion.”
So, unless someone stops you, I’d say fill your boots (not literally).
Wetherspoons emailed to say “our pubs do not have a policy regarding allowing non-paying customers to use our toilets. We have taken note of your further comments and have passed them to the relevant team for review”. Which to my way of thinking means, you’re more than welcome.
A number of venues, who asked not to be named, stated that “the decision is made on a store-by-store basis, but they would not be willing to advertise this fact as that could create further problems.
Other positive responses, via Twitter, came from https://twitter.com/workshopcoffee who stated “Not sure if this help as we’re just outside of the town centre but we do have toilets accessible to all at the Steelyard in Kelham” who can be found @SteelYardKelham on Twitter.
Also https://twitter.com/DorothyPax/with_replies said “People are welcome to use Dorothy Pax loos at Victoria Quays” which I can attest to be true as they let me use it when they weren’t even open.
The toilets at Orchard Square have been mentioned numerous times and we were told that there is an accessible toilet outside TK Maxx which can be accessed via a key upon request, from the nearby venues. There are also toilets in Sheffield Plate and Waterstones, neither of whom replied to our email about access but I have been into Waterstone’s facilities today without issue or purchase.
There are other facilities on their way with the new shipping container venue, at the top of Fargate, being created from today and due to be finished in a matter of weeks. More details here.
Other toilets for which we have not gained further details are present in Kommune, Café Nero, McDonalds, Nandos, The Crucible, Virgin Bank and all bookmakers must have facilities as part of their licences.
Other useful resources linked to accessible toilets include:
https://www.changing-places.org/
www.toiletmap.org.uk - available on Twitter via @LoocationsUK
The mobile phone apps “Flush” and “Toilet Finder” have similar mapping and locating facilities.
If there are any inaccuracies, discrepancies or things we need to update (apart from me going to Waterstones toilet’s every single day) then please either contact us via @HelpSheffield on Twitter or via email helpmycityelves@gmail.com
We hope that helps.