Roundwood Park protest outside the closed toilets earlier this summer
Following the lack of action by Brent Council after the August protest in Roundwood Park calling for accessible, safe and clean public toilets in the park a petition has been launched.
It is not a new issue, nearly 10 years ago I wrote on Wembley Matters: It's time to re-launch a campaign for decent public toilet provision - it's an equality issue
KOVE (Kilburn Older Voices Exchange) staged a procession down Kilburn High Road calling for better toilet facilities back in 2024 LINK. and more recently a 'pop up' toilet has been set up by volunteers in Kilburn's Grange Park.
The current petition, Re-open Roundwood Park toilets, was set up by local campaigner Amandine Alexandre on the Brent Council website and is open until October 31st 2025.
Perhaps we can get some pledges from candidates before the Council elections next year?
The Petition
We the undersigned petition the council to re-open Roundwood Park existing toilets and work on the design of modern toilets, less prone to attract anti-social behaviour
Roundwood Park users have been deprived of public toilets since July 2022.
The lack of public toilets in Roundwood Park is affecting absolutely everyone - parents with children, disabled people, older people, people with health issues etc. It prevents lots of residents from using the park as much as they would like and it stops too many people from coming to the park altogether.
It's particularly an issue for women of all ages. We, women, spend less time in parks than men - and that affects our health and sense of well-being in a very negative way. Reversely, having access to inclusive green spaces boosts our health. For example, girls are less likely to be anxious and depressed when they spend time in green spaces.
On August 2nd, I was part of a group of local residents who gathered in the park to ask for the re-opening of the public toilets. Again, our request fell on deaf ears and we were told by Cabinet member Krupa Sheth that we should use the cafe toilets.
This is an inappropriate answer that fails to understand that the cafe toilets cannot be a replacement for public toilets and that the closure of the public toilets is creating a health issue for residents.
As Brent Council is about to spend £3 millions on Green Corridors in Roundwood and Church End to encourage more people who live in Church End to use Roundwood Park and fight against health inequalities, now is the time to re-open the existing public toilets or build new toilets in a different, better location in the park where there will be a reduced risk of anti-social behaviour taking place.
6 comments:
We need public toilets in all our parks that will benefit every person wishing to use the parks.
Why not use money from the developer to fund renewal of the public toilets in Roundwood?
Perhaps Friends of Barham Library should be charging the Council for the provision of toilets in Barham Park?
Friends of Barham Library provide a wide range of services to local people including affordable space for other groups providing local activities for local people. We allow Park users to use of our toilets if they need to and parents with children using the park & others take advantage of this. While we never refuse donations we have no intention of charging anyone for this small service. As a local charity created to serve local people and run by volunteers it is just another contribution that we are happy to make.
There was another shared toilet created in the Barham Buildings in around 2010 specifically to be shared with the public but access to Park users to this toilet was lost when Labour Councillors closed the original Barham Park Library and leased that part of the building to an out of Brent organisation.
Labour Councillors also failed to extend the contact for the JCDecaux external toilet in Barham Park a few years ago.
I agree that each of all Brent Parks need an accessible public toilet and this service could be paid out the the tens of millions of pounds in Developers CIL money that the Council is still hoarding.
Transport for London should also be forced to ensure their toilets are open - the ones at the extremely busy Wembley Central station have been 'temporarily closed for repair' for over 2 years now yet they spent £6.5million on the pointless rebranding of the Overground Lines - toilets are more important than fancy signage!!!
Public toilets in South Kilburn Park for its dispersed from City of Westminster rough sleepers. A public toilet would provide for basic human dignity rather than adding more texture to the term 'brownfield' development land.
Brent officers did plan pitch this 2ha local parks expansion and major green transition investment to councillors in Dec 2024 to community support towers growth (i.e. the New Kilburn Wall by Vistry) , but no word in the 9 months since.
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