In The News: Church in row as neighbours hear urination in unisex loo

This article appeared in the Sunday Telegraph newspaper (UK) January 19th, 2025. (Thanks to Adrian, one of our website subscribers, for the contribution.)

A church is embroiled in a row over its gender-neutral lavatory after its neighbours complained parishoners can be heard urinating.

St Paul’s North Shore in Blackpool, Lancashire, submitted plans to replace its existing lavatories with unisex facilities in September last year.

A couple next door objected, claiming they could “clearly hear individuals urinating” from their living room. Now the church has been ordered to change its plans to stop this “nuisance” by the Diocese of Blackburn.

The Rev Deborah Frost, the vicar of St Paul’s and her churchwardens applied to the diocese in September to replace existing “long past their best” with gender-neutral versions and office space. They said the current facilities dated from the mid-20^th century and had “tiles falling off the ceilings and the plaster around the windows falling out”.

But the neighbours wrote: “The toilet cubicles adjoining my living room produces a loud banging noise that echoes and vibrates through my property when the cubicles are used. The noise is not limited to the slamming of doors but also includes the lack of privacy when people use the facilities, which is very unpleasant as we can hear individuals urinating”.

The neighbours claimed that they stopped using the living room because of the noise. The church said it was the first time in the “nearly 60 years” the toilets had been located there that they received a complaint. David Hodge KC, chancellor of the diocese’s consistory court, ordered the church to be “good neighbours” by installing soundproof insulation, or moving the lavatories away from the adjoining wall.

He wrote: “If this can be done without causing any inconvenience to the parish, and at no material additional cost, then, as good neighbours, the parish should seek… a solution to their neighbours’ concerns”.

(C) Sunday Telegraph.

The Bathroom adds: This reminds us of something similar awhile back.