Loo of the Year Awards: November 2006 News

Top Loos honoured at Belfast Awards Ceremony

A number of toilet providers will be feeling ‘flushed with pride’ after winning top accolades in the 2006 Loo of the Year Awards in Northern Ireland.

The Awards Ceremony took place in Belfast City Hall on Monday 27th November at a Luncheon hosted by The Lord Mayor of Belfast, Councillor Pat McCarthy.

Meadowlane Shopping Centre at Magherafelt was the national winner of the individual category Awards and the public convenience at William Street, Portadown, provided by Craigavon District Council, won the top Award for public toilets.

Other National Winners were Marine Park, Annalong for accessible toilets and McKillens, Ballymena for babychange facilities.

The cleaning team at Wellington Court, Ballymena received the individual Attendant team of the Year Award for Northern Ireland while P&O Irish Ferries picked up the in-house cleaning team Award and Robinson Cleaning and Support Services the external cleaning contractor Award.

A further twelve establishments won National Category Awards across the fifty five different entry categories.

A total of 29 top five star grades were awarded to entries from Northern Ireland, together with a further 18 four star and 8 three star Awards.

Belfast City Council and Newry and Mourne District Council won ‘Premier League’ Awards being two of the top twenty Local Authority public toilet providers throughout the UK and Belfast won a ‘Champions League’ Standards of Excellence Award for picking up a total of five 5 Star Awards – one of only thirteen ‘away from home’ toilet providers of all types in the UK to do so.

The 2006 Awards were sponsored by leading washroom service supplier Initial Washroom Solutions, together with Armitage Shanks, Technical Concepts and The British Cleaning Council. The Awards were also supported, as in previous years, by The Northern Ireland Tourist Board.

“Standards of toilet provision are definitely rising”, quotes Raymond Martin, Director of the Awards in Ireland. “We are pleased to announce today the establishment of a dedicated organisation devoted to raising standards of all ‘away from home’ toilets throughout Ireland – The Toilet Association of Ireland. We will be campaigning hard to ensure that the provision of adequate toilets with minimum standards of specification and cleanliness becomes a higher priority for every business and authority, including education and health establishments.”

Richard Chisnell, UK Director of the Loo of the Year Awards, will outline plans next year for the celebration of the 20th Anniversary since the Awards were first introduced in the UK in 1987. “We’ve come a long way since the start of this increasingly popular annual Awards scheme”, he says. “Many establishments now use the Awards to gain an independent annual audit of their toilet facilities, since each entry receives an unannounced visit by an authorised Awards Inspector who assess against over one hundred different inspection criteria.”

24th November 2006

You can order photos of the 2006 Loo of the Year Awards Belfast Awards Ceremony ... direct from our photographer.