I see that with the recent retirement of Sylvia Smith from the Ladies at the Superloo, the Lib-Dems have seized the opportunity to close down a complete shift at the Superloo toilets, Gents as well. Now, instead of decent toilet facilities being available from 6 AM to 7 PM, these have been reduced to 7.30 AM to 2 PM, a drastic downgrading of an essential public service.
As some market traders arrive daily at 5.30 to 6 AM, where are the facilities for them? Toilet and hand-washing facilities must be provided by law at any retail site selling food, and the market is no exception. When traders arrive early, the first thing that most of them want to do after a long drive is use the loo. Now they haven't got one!
Northampton is the only market I know of to suffer from this pitiful lack of facilities. Even Olney, a small market town, has a proper brick-built toilet and washroom which is open when the early traders arrive. We have a Liberal Democrat council that can spend £3,000 each on parasols to dot about the waste space below the market, but cannot afford decent toilet facilities. What a disgusting shambles!
Perhaps we should start bringing our own facilities, like a toilet tent set up early on the Square, with a porta-potty inside, all proceeds to a suitable charity. At 7.30 AM it could be packed away and the porta-potty emptied. Quite where it might be emptied is an interesting point. A market colleague who favours direct action suggests down the Guildhall steps. That would certainly wake the Lib-Dems up a bit; a nice sight and smell to greet these fine councillors!
But this is only the beginning of the denial of toilet facilities to both market traders and the general public. The dirty Liberal Democrats are closing down the Superloo completely from this coming September. Yes, closing down an excellent facility which has for many years won national awards for outstanding cleanliness and quality. So where are all these expected visitors to the weekend market events supposed to go to the toilet? In the streets? In the alleyways and behind buildings?
Northampton's Town Centre has a bad enough reputation already, without the Lib-Dems sending it spiralling down to the level of a third-world shanty town. The first reports of human fouling have come in this very afternoon, after the toilets were closed at 2 PM. People taken short went to the Superloo and found it closed. So they had to go outside; they were probably bursting. I have no sympathy with the council over this, they have closed early at short notice a well-known and much-appreciated facility, and intend to close it completely in September. Dirty Lib-Dems making it a Dirty Old Town.
Remember, if you visit Northampton soon, don't come early, and don't stay late beyond 2 PM. If you visit after August, at whatever time of day, bring your own plastic bucket. If it gets too full to take home, just leave it in the Guildhall - the dirty Liberal Democrats will know what to do with it.
Since I wrote the above we have heard the Superloo has a reprieve, at least until the Lib-Dem 'Community Toilet Project' is in operation. I thought this was going to be some cheap-skate Lib-Dem idea where we all had to sit down together, but apparently not so. Read all about it on the Northampton Market web site article 'Holding on...'
http://www.northamptonmarket.biz/html/comments___blog.html#Holdingon Oh, and the Pogues are here:
* http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kVUZuVZWHkk
