Will Nottingham City Council provide free toilet passes for Nottingham’s Bus Drivers at Greyhound Street toilets?

 

"Will Nottingham City Council recognise the service the cities bus drivers provide to the people of Nottingham and issue them passes to use the public toilets free of charge on Greyhound Street?" An Open Letter to Leader of the council Neghat Khan from Lee Odams, RMT Vice Branch Secretary, Nottinghamshire and Derbyshire Branch & Secretary of RMT National Industrial Organising Conference of Busworkers

 

By email & Blogpost
 
Councillor Neghat Khan Leader of Nottingham City Council

Loxley House

Station Street

Nottingham

NG2 3NG


E: neghat.khan@nottinghamcity.gov.uk,

 

cc: Councillor Ethan Radford Deputy Leader, ethan.radford@nottinghamcity.gov.uk, Graham Chapman Nottingham City Councillor & Chairman of Nottingham City Transport, graham.chapman@nottinghamcity.gov.uk, Nadia Whittome Labour MP for Nottingham East, nadia.whittome.mp@parliament.uk, Lilan Greenwood Labour MP for Nottingham South & Parliamentary Under Secretary of State at the Department of Transport, lilian.greenwood.mp@parliament.uk, Alex Norris Labour (Co-op) MP for Nottingham North & Kimberley, alex.norris.mp@parliament.uk, Michael Payne Labour MP for Gedling, michael.payne.mp@parliament.uk.

 

 

12th July 2024 


Dear Councillor Khan,
 

RE: Will Nottingham City Council provide free toilet passes for Nottingham’s Bus Drivers at Greyhound Street toilets?

 
As a veteran Bus Driver and Vice Secretary of RMT’s Nottinghamshire and Derbyshire Branch & Secretary of RMT National Industrial Organising Conference of Busworkers I am acutely aware of the problems and issues bus drivers suffer in respect of a lack of toilet facilities.  In the last eighteen years I have been driving buses, I have witnessed and experienced a decline in the number of public toilets which our profession relies on.

 

Bus drivers are sometimes behind the wheel of their vehicle for five and a half hours without a break, we are not always on a route with toilets that are accessible at the outer terminus. Sometimes our only option is to hold yourself until you get back into the city centre. The Greyhound Street toilets are used a lot by bus drivers particularly those that are based on services on King & Queen Street, Parliament Street, Milton Street, Angel Row, Friar Lane. Some bus drivers myself included also have a medical condition or medication that we are taking, and a side effect is you require more visits to the toilet. I can understand to a degree the council’s reasons for making the toilets chargeable but as we were called during covid and the lockdowns and I was one of the drivers that worked though (KEY WORKERS), couldn’t the council make an exception for Bus Drivers and give them passes or key fobs or something else where we can access the toilets for free.

 

I have been a trade union representative and branch official in Nottingham for several years and am Now the Secretary of the RMT Industrial Organising Conference of Busworkers. I have been attending our annual conference every year since 2016, our branch has been pushing for better conditions for bus drivers and toilet dignity because of the nature of our job.

 

At last year’s conference that was held in Torquay our branch took a resolution that was passed unanimously

 

Resolution Toilet Dignity – Bus Workers

 

 

That this RMT National Bus Workers Industrial Organising Conference calls upon the RMT National Executive Committee to support and campaign for toilet dignity for all bus drivers.

Despite the widespread Lack of Toilet Dignity on many UK Bus Routes, no Regional Authority or Bus Operator should be permitted to run a Bus Service where a working Bus Driver’s access to a suitable toilet is not guaranteed.  Various UK laws and regulations oblige employers to provide hygienic and accessible toilet facilities to workers in the working environment, namely

 

  • The Health and Safety at Work etc. Act 1974 and The Workplace Regulations 1992.
  • The Management of Health and Safety at Work Regulations 1999.
  • The Construction Regulations 2015
  • The Equality Act 2010 

 

Accordingly, this Conference calls upon the RMT National Executive to work with the Health & Safety Executive and to additionally work with Labour Unions, Regional Authorities and Bus Operators to —

 

a) create a publicly accessible National Toilet Dignity Database that will name the Bus Routes, Regional Authorities and Bus Operators that fail to provide Toilet Dignity;

 

b)  create and issue an evidenced-based standard for toilet provision for UK Bus Drivers supported by Human Factors and Health Science Analysis that will (a) clearly define the maximum time a Bus Driver can be denied guaranteed access to a toilet while working and (b) a minimum standard for toilet cleanliness and accessibility. 

 

A lot has been done by our union and our National Executive since then below are some of the issues that face us as bus drivers.

 

v  Anxiety and discomfort arising from no access to toilet facilities

 

v  Heat or cold weather increasing fluid intake

 

v  Medical conditions or medications causing increased frequency of the need for a toilet such as diabetes, or bladder, bowel or prostate conditions. In addition to diagnosed conditions, advancing age increases the need for the toilet.

 

v  Dehydration affecting concentration of drivers. Drivers may try to ‘Hold it in’ by deliberate dehydration, this can seriously affect health and exacerbate existing medical problems such as cystitis. Health effects of deliberate dehydration include weakness, dizziness, reduced physical performance, reduced short-term memory and other cognitive performance, depressed mood, less alert, constipation, increased risk of renal stones and headache

 

v  Biological menstrual cycle pre-and post-natal. Women take longer to use the toilet (because they have to take more clothes off) and they have more need for them because of physical needs that men don’ t have such as changing pads and tampons during periods, needing to pee more often when pregnant, and having to deal with endometriosis, miscarriages, urinary incontinence and heavy bleeding

 

v  Turnaround time insufficient to allow use of facilities

 

v  Route planning, long distances over 3hours

 

v  Adverse weather conditions– could cause delay

 

v  Unplanned delay

 

 

As you can see by some of these examples but not an exhaustive list, bus drivers need access to a publicly accessible toilet. I would hope as Nottingham City Council are the majority shareholder at Nottingham City Transport, they would have a legal and moral duty of care but also would want to do the right thing and allow bus drivers free access in Nottingham to the Greyhound Street Toilets. I sincerely hope that you can consider this request and move forward and discuss this at a council meeting I know the bus drivers of Nottingham at NCT, Trent Barton and CT4N will all be hoping for a satisfactory outcome please do the right thing.

 

Yours Sincerely

 

 

 

Lee Odams

RMT Vice Branch Secretary Nottinghamshire & Derbyshire Bus & Secretary RMT National Industrial Organising Conference of Busworkers.

 

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