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Public toilets Broadwick Street
Photograph: Avpics / Alamy Stock Photo

A Soho toilet is up for sale

But locals aren't happy about it

India Lawrence
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India Lawrence
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Ever wanted to own your own London loo? Well, now you have a chance to make your lavatorial dream come true. There’s an underground toilet in Soho up for sale. 

This lav, however, doesn’t come without its own history. It originally closed as a public loo because according to the Met, it’s a famous ‘cottaging’ spot in London – a place where gay men meet for casual sex. Emails between the police and locals allege it was one of the most popular cottaging spots in the UK. 

The Broadwick Street bog could be turned into an ‘ice cream parlour or cafe’, locals speculated. The loos have hit the market, however, Soho Society called Westminster City Council’s plans to sell them ‘ridiculous’. 

Soho Society has been calling for more public loos in Soho for years, as street weeing has become a huge problem in the area. Society chairman Tim Lord said the council currently spends £950,000 a year cleaning up after people peeing in public.

He said: ‘It will be ridiculous to close the public toilets in Soho. We have more drinking than we ever had. On Hopkins Street, you get people weeing on people's houses and into people's letterboxes.

‘At the end of the night, men just urinate right next to the streets and sometimes right next to the closed toilets. I have reports of people urinating on front doors and they have to wash their doors down.’

To counter the pee-demic, Westminster Council has also just installed ‘pee paint’ that will cause urine to splash back on revellers whizzing in the streets. The council, however, hasn’t announced any plans for more public toilets.

Boggin'!

More bogs: TikTok is going wild for this London loo that’s basically a mini-nightclub.

And another one: A nightclub in a toilet has reopened in London.

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