Stonehenge: a penny for your thoughts

It’s a delicate matter but we thought we’d better ask. A recent official document for Tour Operators outlining the new arrangements for visiting Stonehenge contains this “Top Tip” ….

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It has been announced elsewhere there’ll be just two “emergency toilets” close to the Stones, a standard one and one for disabled people. So keeping in mind up to 900 people an hour will be visiting the stones the question naturally arises, will the facilities be adequate?

We assume research will have been done but still, how many of those 900 people an hour will be very young or elderly or have relevant medical conditions? Two toilets only? What if three people need them? Or ten? What is a safe number? Your opinion would be welcome.

The worry of course is that no-one can be quite sure if the number of toilets are adequate until the new arrangements commence – and if it turns out they aren’t there might have to be a hurried provision of “emergency” emergency toilets. Clearly it would be better to build them into the plan than to have to add something later that is more intrusive than it needed to have been. We’re big fans of splendid isolation and avoiding unnecessary excavation but even those are surely outranked by the need for sufficient toilets, else why bother allowing visitors at all?