How far to the toilet?

In the heart of ‘legal London’, we need a toilet. What, another one? It’s a mere 98 years since the first Ladies’ toilet opened for use at the Law Society, a move that entailed ‘a considerable amount of expense’, in the words of the Law Society’s president at the time.

The toilet I want is a disabled toilet. (Again, you might ask, what, another one?) I don’t know if the firms and institutions of legal London are proud of the current provision. Maybe they are. Each refurbishment brings a line of toilets that bear the wheelchair logo. When I first started work at the Law Society, there was a disabled loo that was often accessible only via a staircase – the ancient lift beside it was often broken. It’s better now.

But nowhere I’ve visited in the area has a toilet with the hoist that some people need to get in and out of a wheelchair. And there is no changing table that can accommodate anyone above the size of a baby. Why are these things needed? Well, not everyone who needs to ‘go’ uses the loo.

The standard of toilet I’m referring to is that promoted by the organisation ‘Changing Places’. I’ve asked around just in case, but my enquiries so far confirm what the Changing Places map of the area shows – legal London is a desert for this kind of facility.

If that’s not shameful, it is at least a shame.

Earlier this year I went to the opening of 7 Bedford Row’s ‘Sesame’ steps – the clever new accessible entrance these chambers had installed. Their reasoning applies to the facility I want. They have members of chambers who are wheelchair users. And its barristers act for clients in personal injury cases, where the clients’ injuries mean they use wheelchairs or have other mobility issues.

But even here, if you need to be lifted out of your chair to be changed, instead of perching on the loo seat, there is nothing.

That affects ‘range’ if someone needs such a facility. There is travel time, the time spent on legal affairs (as a lawyer or a client), then the journey home. How long would you have in central London if you had nowhere to ‘go’? I’d probably manage about 90 minutes at my desk before it was time to head home.

We had a roundtable discussion last week, focused on disabled lawyers in the legal profession. There was, we reflected, a stated need for the legal profession to embrace remote and flexible working that predated the Covid-pandemic – and that the acceptance of remote working that lockdowns ushered in was progress in this regard.

But does that mean the office can never be visited by some?

That needs to change. Not one for every building, but the legal profession could cooperate to create one Changing Places-standard toilet. Can’t we manage one?

Whether it is in a law firm, the Law Society, one of the Inns, the Bar Council, or the new justice centre rising on Fleet Street it could be open to lawyers, clients and – why not? – the general public. The latter would burnish the profession’s claim to act in the public interest.

I know what it is like to be in a city centre without the sort of toilet I want being available. While we can make it around much of London to do things with my youngest daughter, who needs a changing table and hoist, a trip to see her older sister in Cambridge gives us an issue around ‘range’. So we’ve only done it once. The ‘disabled toilets’ were all useless, many of them cramped. In the end, flashing alumni ID, I negotiated entry to a university building with an unused room large enough to change her on the floor – lifted there by me on to my coat. (The floor was very hard.)

She’s 15, and that is a massive physical effort for me. She’s not been back since – not least, the university building we used now has the builders in. Are they building a toilet we can use? I doubt it.

So if you think you don’t see many lawyers or clients around the heart of our justice system who would use such a room, I can tell you why. If it’s difficult enough to come here, it’s also difficult to stay.

It’s high time the legal profession got together to do this. One toilet. Build it and they’ll come. We might then find we need more than one.