Over the years, street urination has consistently been one of the most common causes of concern to Heart of London businesses. Street Urination carries a heavy cost to us all. Discovering your doorway has been used as a toilet overnight is not only offensive, but neutralising the odour is a costly use of resources.
Heart of London Business Alliance are working with Westminster City Council and the Metropolitan Police to reduce the effects of this nuisance, and have agreed to a programme of cleansing, education, communication and enforcement to reduce the incidents.
We are asking clubs and pubs to promote the message 'Go before you go' to their customers before leaving. We will also be warning people of the penalties that can be incurred if caught urinating in the street by identifying the most popular areas where urinating occurs and placing signs at these locations.
Heart of London will arrange for these popular areas of urination to be treated with a bio-degradable solution that will reduce the affects of urine on the door and its surrounds. This is an effective long-term remedy to the corrosion and associated smell.
New, larger, clearer temporary signposting has been on display near the 24-hour toilets in Leicester Square, and City Guardians will be patrolling the vicinity to reassure the public they are safe to use, and temporary toilet facilities positioned on Friday and Saturday nights in Leicester Street, Jermyn Street, Charing Cross Road (near Irving Street) and Great Windmill Street (near Shaftesbury Avenue) are better promoted.
Enforcement operations continue on a weekly basis. Anyone caught urinating in the street by an enforcement officer is liable to face a maximum fine of 250 pounds.
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Within the quarter of April-June 2010, six cleansing operations to tackle urination took place. Each operation focused on key areas as a result of feedback from Business Audits. In addition to these, a further three deep cleansing operations were undertaken in Great Windmill Street and Coventry Street.
Continuing with the street urination enforcement activity, 50 people were subsquently summonsed to appear at court regarding urination offences in our area.
Please click here to view the letter to businesses from Westminster City Council (60.33KB)
In addition to these targeted operations, Heart of London Business Alliance continue to fund the jet washing of specific doorways and entrances that suffer from excessive street urination and staining. This is in response to requests from our businesses; please contact us if you would like your premises included.
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On 18th December 2009, we informed businesses of two anti-street urination enforcement operations that were taking place over the Christmas period.
This turned out to be the capital's biggest ever crackdown on people urinating in the street.
The results of this operation saw 24 individuals caught, all of which were found guilty after facing magistrates and fined a total of over five thousand pounds by the court.
For further details, please click here to view the full press release from Westminster City Council.
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Discussions are in progress for further operations of this nature to take place, together with long-term strategies to prevent street urination within our area.
Please pass to us any feedback you have regarding these operations, or any comments or input you would like to make. Call us on 020 7839 3409 or email info@heartoflondonbid.co.uk
Click here to download our Impact Statement on street urination (359KB)