A shopping centre has been accused of going potty with political correctness after it installed squat toilets for Asian customers. The move came after managers at the Rochdale Exchange shopping centre were sent on a cultural awareness course to learn more about the needs of the large Asian population in the Lancashire town. Bosses suggested the idea of hole-in-the-ground toilets to the Asian trainer and received an enthusiastic response, a spokeswoman for the shopping centre said. The complex was planning a refurbishment of its 14 toilets and decided to convert two of them, one for men and one for women, into squat toilets.
The Nile Pan toilets, which are common in Pakistan and India, are preferred by some Asian families because the body does not touch a potentially unhygienic surface. But the centre has dismissed suggestions of the "Islamification" of the great British loo.
A spokeswoman for Rochdale Exchange said: "If there had been a decision to provide only eastern European toilets I would really have expected some sort of backlash. 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. They came up with the idea, it would be really good to provide toilet facilities that were desirable by that particular part of the community."
| For a different take: Muslim public loo fury |
