More toilet facilities should be available

Dear Editor,

One might have thought that with all the concern and bustling preparation for the imminent Cricket World Cup 2007, and our tourism ambitions beyond that event, some thought would have been directed to a need to upgrade our stock of sanitary facilities for public use and convenience (no pun intended).

Few of our business places appear to harbour a responsibility for such a provision. The common attitude appears to be that such facilities are reserved for staff. At some business places it is not unusual for one to be told that such-and-such a nearby establishment “might be able to assist”.

But Editor is it not time that the authorities, even if our businesses fail to recognise such a mandate, should have been imposing that requirement, especially on new establishments? And surely, the older business places could be given a time frame in which they should be expected to fall in line. This is the twenty first century, after all!

And what about parking space as a compulsory requirement for new or reconstructed businesses? Why should all those streets in the business areas be so overcrowded with vehicles parked on both sides, to the extent that there is little room for two-way traffic, and far less for overtaking? What about using some of those burnt-out areas as paid parking, for the time being?

Yours faithfully,

Walter A. Jordan