Toilets next to Hinks Café on the revetment between Sandown and Shanklin have been closed indefinitely due to major issues with the drainage system.
Closed on Thursday (1st June), the closure is for the foreseeable future whilst a new PCL control board is being ordered – with no idea at the moment when that might be.
A PCL board is a computer chip that in this case regulates the carrying of the sewage and waste from the toilets up the cliffside and onto the treatment works.
This follows the intermittent closure of facilities at Yaverland car park in Sandown before the bank holiday weekend, which continues to cause issues amid what could be one of the busiest summer seasons that the Island has seen in a long time.
The closure of toilet and baby changing facilities could have an adverse effect on the local economy with one local saying:
“The people running this Island are failing its residents and businesses. How can you advertise as a holiday Island and have no basic facilities”.
The nearest public conveniences currently are at either end of the revetment – at Esplanade Gardens in Shanklin or the paid-for private toilets on Sandown Pier.
Bag it up and put it in the rubbish bins. That is what dog owners have to do now in many cases, so what is the difference between ours and theirs?
Ours is only dinner, as theirs is only bones.
Except many dog owners don’t do that at all as there is doggy-doos all over the revetment on any day. So now people will be dumping their own stuff behind the huts. And weren’t these toilets just redecorated at great expense? I hope the guy with the cafe gets some compo for the loss of trade from people not wanting to stop by as there’s no facilities. It’s his taxes that pay towards this incompetence. Only one toilet now between Culver and the Dino golf in Shanklin. Outrageous.
Compo? Are you Australian?
Not ‘many’ dog owners, just a small minority. Only takes one to do it each day for it to get bad. And other dog owners will soon say something if they see them not picking it up.
Also the path that leads up to Lake is over grown with vegetation leaving very little room for anyone with a pram to make their way up or down just wide enough on the bend to get through , or use the hand rail as support for the elderly on this steap climb.
Perhaps those who say they cant afford food, could charge visitors to use their bathroom facilities at £1 a time?
A win win for both parties.
High time for a full investigation into the (non) workings of our totally useless council. THEY ARE TOTALLY AND UTTERLY USELESS.
AS Dylan sang, ‘The executioners face is always well hidden’, so a full investigation would be allies of those milking the cash cow, anything deeper will never happen so it would cost a lot for a farce of an investigation which would show up nothing. Masons etc are heavily involved in planning, development etc on the Island.
Basically the only publicly funded toilet you can rely on to be open (and free of charge) in the whole Sandown and Shanklin seafront area is the one by the dinosaur crazy golf in Shanklin. Any other, it’s pot luck or you need money.
I would feel a great deal of shame if I was a councillor responsible for this.
Tourists may come to this area in the Summer but I’d be surprised if many of them ever come back.
We should sack this useless council and get some people with some vision and business acumen running it! They should be demanding services to fix these types of problems and do their homework before making decisions (floating bridge, traffic lights, roads, Coppins bridge). Tourism could be the industry to keep the majority of people employed and earning a living. Why then are they so hell bent on destroying that industry (along with help from ferry providers)?
It is not difficult, just put one or two blocks of the posh loo’s that they use at festivals. Empty daily, problem solved.
But that costs money, if we do that there will be no money left to host the billionaire royals when they comer over, god forbid they would have to spend any money, please think of the UK billionaire oligarchs, they need our help and obedience.
Not meaning to sound silly, but why not put a couple of Portaloos on the front during the peak season at least? I know they would have to be secured somehow and locked of a night time, and also try to keep vandals away, but surely something along those lines could be done?
Of course it could – but it wont be as that would require someone at county hall to actually pull their thumb out of their a*se and actually really do something. So no chance.
Not a bad idea and exactly what other 3rd world countries do.
What the hell do you need a computer chip for? Surely a dip stick, a wobble pump and a brain is all that is required here. And, of course, the willingness to help, something that clearly does not exist in the I WC.
An extremely popular holiday island and we have next to no working public toilets in some areas of the island. You really couldn’t make this up. It’s unbelievable. Come on IOW Council, get on it and sort this problem out for Christ sake.
Public WCs need to be as basic as they can. Cheap to build, cheap to repair, and little to vandalise.
Stainless steel pan, no lid, auto flush, so nothing to be kicked to bits, urinal on the outside wall so pan can be in the smallest space possible, most men just need a quick wee and provided dwarf walls for modesty were supplied standing outside no issue.
Toilet paper should no longer be supplied, buy tissues IF you need a poop.
Cut the cost to the bone, but at least we would have working toilets.
Only weirdo’s use them for anything other than absolute necessity, so keep them minimal
Involve the south today programme to come to the island and highlight the lack of forward planning and infrastructure .BBC may shame the council in to act
What cods wallop that only a few dog owners do not pick the dogs poo, 80% of people walking dogs on the beach or revetment have no idea what their dogs are doing as they are too busy talking to watch where their dogs are or the dog is 100m+ away. Hardly a day goes by where I do not have to pick up the mess from in front of my beach hut. I have even experienced a dog on a lead being allowed to urinate up the water stand pipe.. i .