Ways of combating toilet vandalism are considered
Friday 15th February 2013, 1:00PM GMT.
OPTIONS are being considered about how best to prevent on-going vandalism at the North Beach men’s toilets.
Between 4pm last Friday and 1.15am the following day, two out of three urinals were smashed and damage caused to the tiling behind.
The facility had to be closed while the damaged items were removed.
Crime reduction adviser Andy Goodall, pictured, said incidents like this were often committed by a few, but affected a majority.
He said increasing the number of CCTV cameras in the area was a possible option, but would have a fairly substantial cost.
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Stop being nanny about this.
Put CCTV and audio inside the toilets.
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This damage must have caused quite a bit of noise so Audio activated CCTV might be the answer, although it would need to be calibrated to allow for beanjar enthusiasts
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It would be cheaper to have more CCTV’s, than keep having to replace vandalised toilet’s etc.
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The small minded creatures who did this will be easilly recognised on CCTV as they would need to be wearing breathing equipment as these toilets are disgusting. You can smell these toilets about 500M down wind.
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There are already four CCTV cameras which cover this area. The authorities on numerous occasions(I would estimate dozens)over the last fifteen years or so have been alerted to various types of unlawful and yobbish behaviour in this area and nothing meaningful has been done. Youngsters congregating in this area organising their circuits for the night’s boy racing until the early hours, football matches with the ball bouncing off parked up cars and damaging body panels, boats broken into and stolen from, public toilets smashed up, intimidating and yobbish behaviour all adjacent to a major gateway into the island. This is the first impression of Guernsey visitors receive if they arrive by ship and it is also the last impression they experience if catching the evening Condor. This behaviour is also witnessed by people going to Herm for the evening and some cruise liner passengers if they are leaving late evening. The authorities don’t take the problem seriously otherwise this behaviour would and should have been squashed more years ago.
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Why would people that use the area smash up the toilets? Just means they have nowhere to go when nature calls.
I would take a guess this was done by drunk people leaving town
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The police are too busy zipping around in their tooled up motors to help us deal with our fear (of whatever it is we’re supposed to be scared of) to have the time to deal with ‘anti-social’ crime.
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THis is the price you pay when both parents decide to work, what happens to the children ?
The modern day guernsey ethic of greed which breeds from the finance industry was always going to have social negatives
The youth of today are now talking as no one ever listens
Think about it guys and gals
Bring back the good old days
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Go on, say it PB
‘I blame the finance industry’
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Oops, you already have!
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ah yes the good old days when we had the birch which was a lot better than a telling off.
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yawn, yawn… we say it again,instead of the Police sitting in patrol cars,armoured cars etc etc,get out and about on MORE FOOT PATROLS like the old days,what on earth is the problem,fear?
Again we have local authority faffing around in usual amateure style,instead of getting to grips with things and as we can see cctv is not working,and rarely does,so deal with it in another way.If the mindless wast of space few can not keep a grip on their behaviour,then lock the toilets earlier before dark,or do like many countries now,and like we used to have here years ago,install pay toilets.Of course thats going to cause an “inconvenience” to the behaved side of society,but thats the sad world we live in(no respect or discipline),but believe me the mindless few will soon get fed up with paying to misbehave.Another solution would be,if any of these vandals are caught,(where are the so called parents?)then the law needs to stop mamby pambying about,and have the courage to throw the book at them,and give out heavy fines that run into the hundreds,with a name and shame policy no matter what the ages, simple as that.
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It is easy to sit in a car, it is harder to be fit enough to spend the day on the beat on foot getting to know your area and people who use it, I suspect this is more to do with why there is less foot work. The push bike idea did not last long with one already been given a moped.
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Many years ago a politician (I think it was Ron Le Moignan) suggested fitting metal toilets bowls and wash basins similar to those in France which are virtually vandal-proof. It was rejected on cost but surely this was very short sighted as year on year we as tax payers have to pay to have these replaced.
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We could go entirely French and just have a few holes in the ground?! It would definitely be cheaper and nigh on impossible to vandalise!
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…with the added bonus that anyone who vandalised public facilities could be thrown in for an hour or two!
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Many in the UK are now metal fixings.
Didn;t the disabled toilet get vandalised a few months back to a tune of several thousands of pounds, metal fixings may have reduced that bill considerably.
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you cant have metal basins or toilet pans because if the vandal was to hurt himself there would be an outcry from the human rights lobby.
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The answer has already been tried and tested by Environment hasn`t it?
CLOSE THE TOILETS, if they aren`t open then the vandals can`t wreck them.
States Works haven`t had to repair the ones that have been closed so far.
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Hardly a solution to just close the toilets.
Go the metal fixings route, the ones in St Martins are metal from memory picking up on a previous post.
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Close them down, by closing some of the others, we have saved enough to consider a Cruise Ship Berth. Well done T&R ..
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Complete multi camera and internet connectable CCTV systems are avsilable from Maplins for a few hundred pounds. Even without the extraq expense of providing a internet connection for the toilets, fitting one of these systems should only take an existing states employee a couple of hours, if that. The built in hard drive stores video footage for long enough to be able to backtrack should any bvandalism take place.
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Spot on P.B.FALLA.
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Its time to go back to traditional family values,the increase in this type of behaviour directly relates to both parents working.
How can a child receive proper parental love and affection when they are in the office,some children can manage with this lifestyle,however its quite clear many cant.
Children crave attention good or bad.
In simple terms people of guernsey
YOU CANT HAVE YOUR CAKE AND EAT IT
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I cannot understand why the States continue to install “domestic” type toilets in the public toilets – metal ones are perfectly acceptable – no toilet seat for dirt to collect in and so much easier to clean the toilets – but I also agree CCTV should be installed outside cublicles obviously!! You cannot close toilets just to stop the vandals why should the public suffer for their small minded enjoyment….can’t say I ever got that bored as a teenager to want to go and spend time in the public toilets there must be something better to do with your time…….
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Can I please make the following comment;
“Vandalism to toilets, Police have nothing to go on”.
Feel better now that’s off my chest.
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The older style toilets like the one next to the weighbridge were never vandalised (except with pen and ink). Come to think of it,it was probably the smell that caused it to be closed !!!
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open up the old pissior in the weighbridge .all other loos should have a card pass like we use on the bus. we would pay to pee. and it would record who used to loos last before the damage was reported
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Yep and steal someone else’s card, then vandalise the toilets. If you do it in a weird enough way you could get your enemies sectioned. :-)
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Remove them completely. Have a grass area with large flower beds. Provide a windbreak as cover and you’ve got free fertilizer too. They can’t really do much damage to a windbreak.
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The swipe card thing is a good idea. At airports you can check-in at a machine using your credit/bank card purely as a means of identifying yourself. The same system could be used in the toilets then the system would record exactly who went in and at what time, couple that with cameras and it would be very easy to identify the culprits. Obviously expelling the finance industry from the Island would have the same ultimate outcome, if some of the brain-deads posting here are to be believed.
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If and when our wonderful police force catch these vandals the courts should make them pay all costs and do community service to repair them.
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‘If you are a man the world is your toilet’
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Of course, one could use the method that is used in many countries; i.e. have a toilet attendant present and charge to use the facilities.
Most people would happily part with 20p to ‘spend a penny’.
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19p profit. Now that’s what I call a tax!
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