On Wednesday, Transport for London (TfL) announced it would invest £15m on building more toilets across the network and improving existing facilities. For Billie Nicholls, who has ulcerative colitis, the news means she will be able to travel without "worry and stress". The 28-year-old from south-west London said toilet access for someone with a gut or bladder condition is "really important".
She was diagnosed with the chronic inflammatory bowel disease in 2017 and has been living with a stoma bag for seven years. TfL said it would increase the number of available toilets from the current number of 185 so that customers were "always within 20 minutes of a toilet without having to change train". It added that construction work was expected to start within the next year.
Mrs Nicholls commutes regularly for work from Tooting Broadway to London Bridge and said the commitment was "brilliant" as many people "don't have the luxury of waiting" for a toilet. In October 2019, she was reminded just how important access to toilets could be. After finishing a meeting in her office in Bankside at the end of the day, she discovered that her stoma had leaked down her leg.
"It just wasn't sticking to my skin," she said. "I ran as quick as I could to get to the Tube. "When I got to Euston, my stoma was falling off my stomach.
There was poo all down my leg. "If there had been a toilet earlier in my journey, that definitely would have made a difference." Helena Salisbury, from Weybridge, uses th.