PAMIS are thrilled that the Scottish Government recently announced in their Programme for Government for 2021/2022, the creation of a new £10million fund for Changing Places toilets in Scotland. This has the potential to double the number of Changing Places toilets across the country and we are working hard to support the rollout of these funds over the coming months as well as continuing to provide our enquiry service to local authorities, venues and community groups as to how they can create the optimum layout and location of toilets for the benefit of all users. Our enquiry service is busier than ever as building and construction work picks up again following delays due to the pandemic. If you have an enquiry then get in touch with us at [email protected]

A new Cross Party Group for Changing Places toilets has been established by Paul O’Kane MSP and the first meeting was held last month and was very well attended. You can read the minutes here. We urge anyone interested to join the group at the next meeting due to take place on the 1st June 2022. The meetings are online using Zoom and take place 6pm – 7.30pm to make it as accessible as possible for everyone. To join please email the Secretariat for the group, Angela Dulley: [email protected]

For those of you who are interested in statistics and data about Changing Places toilets you can find our  Annual CPT Report 2021 now available, which looks at the new toilets that were registered in 2021, where they are located  and there is a local authority comparison table available within the report too.

Working with our Consortium co chairs, Muscular Dystrophy UK, we successfully gained funding to create a new and vastly improved Changing Places Toilets UK website which you can find here. Our free publication, The Practical Guide, is available on the website and is essential for architects, inclusive design advisors and venues looking at installing a Changing Places toilet. With example design drawings as well as equipment and technical guidelines and risk assessment/management information it contains everything you need to know to get your design right and exceed the minimum standard to make your venue as accessible as possible. We are in the process of updating this guide at the moment and our first focus group met recently to look at the current layout, equipment and what could be improved and what users want to see in a CPT. Our next update will contain details of a national survey on this and we need as many responses as possible so watch out for that coming soon.

The Changing Places toilet website also contains our freely available interactive “Find a Toilet” mapping tool and this will also be undergoing a significant update and improvement over the coming months making it much easier to search for toilets and plan your journey. We strongly urge any venue with a Changing Places toilet to register their toilet with us so we can promote it and add it to the map which helps users. Please complete the online registration form

We have also been busy completing a national community engagement project in partnership with CalMac ferries looking at ways to improve the number of Changing Places toilets across the islands that are CalMac serve and our final report and recommendations will be publicly available soon. What came through very strongly in all our engagement workshops was that not only do people need access to CPTs on the islands themselves, but connecting journeys are also crucial and we need to see Changing Places at these key locations too.  This is something we are working hard to address and improve.

As co-chairs of the UK Changing Places toilet Consortium , we are so pleased to see the strong application response from local authorities in England with £23.5 million successfully allocated, resulting in over 500 new toilets in England. This significant investment, is life changing and transformative for thousands of families across the UK. Combined with the recent Department of Transport funding to improve motorway service station facilities and the Access for All funding programme to improve access to the rail network across Britain, it will become much easier for people to travel between countries.