'Squat' toilets for Rochdale shops
A shopping centre is shunning the standard British toilet for a 'squat' variety to cater for its Asian customers
A shopping centre has installed new "squat" toilets for Asian customers after bosses went on a cultural awareness course.
The Rochdale Exchange centre in the Lancashire town denied going "potty" with political correctness and dismissed suggestions of the "Islamification" of the great British toilet.
The centre, home to around 70 shops, said it was simply catering for the needs of many of their local Asian customers.
Rochdale is a town with a large Asian community and managers at the shopping complex regularly go on cultural awareness courses, according to the spokeswoman for the centre.
During the last course bosses at the shops suggested the idea of hole in the ground-type squat toilets to their Asian trainer on the course and there was an enthusiastic response, the spokeswoman said.
As the award-winning shopping complex was to refurbish its existing 14 toilets, it was decided to convert two of them, one for males and one for females, into squat toilets.
The new toilets, also known as a Turkish toilet or Nile pan, require users to squat above them, rather than sit.
They are common across many parts of the globe but rarely seen in Britain, which has a strong heritage of pioneering lavatorial invention.
A spokeswoman for the centre said: "It is just about doing what any business would do. They are trying to meet the needs of the community they serve and this is part of it."
The new toilets open next week.
Now forgive me, but I always thought 'Squat Toilets' was because plumbing wasn't really feasible?
A shopping centre is shunning the standard British toilet for a 'squat' variety to cater for its Asian customers
A shopping centre has installed new "squat" toilets for Asian customers after bosses went on a cultural awareness course.
The Rochdale Exchange centre in the Lancashire town denied going "potty" with political correctness and dismissed suggestions of the "Islamification" of the great British toilet.
The centre, home to around 70 shops, said it was simply catering for the needs of many of their local Asian customers.
Rochdale is a town with a large Asian community and managers at the shopping complex regularly go on cultural awareness courses, according to the spokeswoman for the centre.
During the last course bosses at the shops suggested the idea of hole in the ground-type squat toilets to their Asian trainer on the course and there was an enthusiastic response, the spokeswoman said.
As the award-winning shopping complex was to refurbish its existing 14 toilets, it was decided to convert two of them, one for males and one for females, into squat toilets.
The new toilets, also known as a Turkish toilet or Nile pan, require users to squat above them, rather than sit.
They are common across many parts of the globe but rarely seen in Britain, which has a strong heritage of pioneering lavatorial invention.
A spokeswoman for the centre said: "It is just about doing what any business would do. They are trying to meet the needs of the community they serve and this is part of it."
The new toilets open next week.
Now forgive me, but I always thought 'Squat Toilets' was because plumbing wasn't really feasible?
