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Save Fitzroy Gardens > Neglect of the Toilets in the Fitzroy Gardens Sydney Council Neglects the Toilets in the Fitzroy Gardens
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| The toilets located beneath the Police Station in the Fitzroy Gardens -- the only permanent public toilets in the densely-populated Kings Cross/Potts Point area -- are often out of order and repairs regularly take weeks to complete. Council seems unable to perform simple maintenance jobs! Sydney City Council has plenty of money to redevelop parks ($20 million was the quoted figure for the proposed 2010 Fitzroy Gardens/Lawrence Hargrave Reserve makeover) and even to create the plans (more than $620,000 was spent on planning the same makeover). Yet, despite a promise by the Lord Mayor to undertake "vital heritage and maintenance work", Council refuses to spend the relatively small amount of money needed to properly maintain the Fitzroy Gardens's essential amenities such as its public toilets. The City of Sydney must make fixing the toilets properly a priority. It reflects badly on Sydney’s international reputation that we have such poor facilities for visitors and users of the Gardens. We are continuing to monitor the Fitzroy Gardens on a daily basis and recording our observations on this page. Sad to say, the Fitzroy Gardens toilets are still neglected. Maintenance remains woefully slow. This is NOT acceptable -- Council is rich and well-resourced. These toilets are need of a complete over-haul (a much better use of money than the Lord Mayor's current proposal to spend $0.5 million on "pop-up" pissoirs). |
Register of Toilet Malfunctions and Council's Response Times, etc.
2015
See top of this page
2014
April 2014
Wednesday 9 April 2014
No 3 toilet (the most westerly one) was inoperable today 9 April 2014.
Thursday 17 April/Friday 18 April 2014
Workmen were finally in attendance on Thursday 17 April for Toilet No 3. It was in operation again on Good Friday - 18 April and was still working on Saturday 19 April.
Thus it took 9 nine days for maintenance works to begin on Toilet No 3.
March 2014
Saturday 8 March 2014
All three toilets were out-of-order. Let us see how long Council takes to repair them.
Monday 10 March 2014
Workmen were at the toilets today.
At 8pm toilet No 2 (and the western one, that is, No 3) are working.
No 1 (eastern one) is still inoperative. It has the door open and a board placed across the entry.
Wednesday 12 March 2014 - 8pm
No 1 - silver door - operating
No 2 - boarded up - NOT operating
No 3 (west) - operating.
Thursday 13 March 2014 - 2pm
No 1 - operating
No 2 - silver door - operating.
No 3 - boarded up - NOT operating.
Friday 14 March 2014 - 6pm
All toilets working. Western one (No 3) now has a silver door.
Saturday 15 March 2014 - 6pm
All toilets now working.
January 2014
On 28 January 2014:
Toilet No. 2 out of order again. Reported to Council (reference no.: OBG0010134). The toilet was back in operation on 30 January after just two days. The Council is improving its response time.
On 2 January 2014, 8.30am:
All three toilets were out of order. In the period 8.30 - 9.00am, three people attempted to use the toilets and were disappointed (that is one person every 10 minutes).
A local resident reported the situation to the City of Sydney Council and received the Reference Number 1202696. The toilets were, however, to remain out of order for almost three weeks (see details below).
On 4 January all three toilets were still not working. Three green portaloos had been placed near these out-of-order toilets.. On each toilet door sign there was a sign (see photo above) saying "OUT OF ORDER. The nearest public toilets are located at Beare Park [Elizabeth Bay]".
On 20 January 2014 the portaloos were finally removed and the toilets were at last again opened for use. Just 18 days out-of-order this time -- a record!
We hope, but are not confident, this is the last breakdown for 2014.
2013
December 2012/January 2013
On 21 December 2012 Toilet No. 2 broke down and was unusable. It was out of order for 16 days -- right throughout the extremely busy Christmas and New Year season (from 21 December 2012 into the first week of January 2013), despite Council having been informed shortly after the problem first occurred.
Don't just take our word for it. Here, in a screenshot from Twitter, you can see the story as it happened:
28 October 2013
At 8am on Monday 28 October 2013 the Friends of Fitzroy Gardens noticed that all 3 toilets had red flashing lights (meaning the toilets were inoperable).
At 1.30pm of the same day we saw Out of Order signs on each of the toilets.
This photo taken was taken by the Friends of Fitzroy Gardens on 14 October 2013. Note the out of order signs on the dark blue doors of the toilets and the row of portaloos sitting in front of the toilets.
The Friends of Fitzroy Gardens reported the broken toilets a second time on 14 October and received another reference number (OBG0003777).
On 15 October 2013 the toilets were repaired and became useable. Late on 16 October the ugly, smelly portaloos were removed.
Once again Kings Cross's only permanent public toilets were out-of-order for a period of 48 days!
At the 21 October Council meeting a question was asked about the toilets and the Lord Mayor provided an answer as set out in the image below:
A Kings Cross resident received a letter dated 22 October 2013 from the City of Sydney (see image below) stating the toilets had been fixed and "we hope this will prevent similar problems from occurring in the future". The Friends of Fitzroy Gardens do too.
October/November 2013
On 27 October 2013 the toilets broke down again and remained so until 27 November 2013 -- a period of 31 days.
December 2013
On 6 December 2013 at 7pm:
- Fitzroy Gardens toilet number 3 was not working.
On 17 December 2013:
- No 2 toilet has been inoperable since at least Friday 13 Dec.
- No 3 toilet has been inoperable since at least Monday 16 Dec.
- No 1 toilet also appeared to be out of order.
On 18 December 2013:
- No 1 seems to be operating this morning.
- No 2 has been out since Friday 13 Dec, and No 3 out since Monday 16th (at least).
On 21 December 2013:
- All three toilets were working.
On 29 December 2013:
- First noticed all 3 toilets with red lights out yesterday, Sat 28 December 2013. All 3 with red lights again today, Sun 29 December.
On 30 December 2013:
- No 1 toilet was operating.
- Toilets No 2 and No 3 were not but had signs on them saying they were out of order and the nearest public toilets were at Beare Park, Elizabeth Bay.
On 31 December 2013, 6pm:
- Signs gone and Toilets No 1 and No 2 working. No 3 not working.
- People queuing (up to 10 people).
- A young couple from overseas heard complaining about the condition of the toilets after exiting them.
- No. 3 was fixed some time during the following hours, as all three toilets were found to be operational on 1 January 2014.
2012
May/June/July 2012
On one notorious occasion in May/June/July 2012 the toilets were out of order for almost 50 days until pressure from one of the friends of the Friends of Fitzroy Gardens forced Council to come and do the repairs. (See this letter to the Wentworth Courier.)
The three toilets became inoperable in late May 2012 and it was 48 days before they were fixed. However, one of the toilets (No. 2 Toilet) broke down again within hours of being repaired and it was another two days before it was put back into service.
Appallingly, for the 30 days of this outage there was not even a portaloo in place for visitors requiring toilet facilities. On the 30th day just one portaloo was placed outside the broken toilets. It was another ten days before another two portaloos arrived on site. The conditions of these portaloos, however, was atrocious.
Related Page:
Council's Neglect of the Fitzroy Gardens: Broken and Crumbling Tiles, Delaminated Wall, and more
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