BASILDON is set to be removed from the list as one of the top ten largest areas in the UK without changing places toilets.

Changing places toilets are bigger than standard accessible ones, and are used by people with severe disabilities, including children and adults with muscle-wasting conditions, cerebral palsy, motor neurone disease, and multiple sclerosis.

Despite still being listed as having no changing places toilets, Basildon Council has insisted it has since installed its first in the sporting village last year.

It is hoped this will mean the town can be removed from the least accessible list and be given more credit for its facilities for those in need.

However more still needs to be done, according to campaigners.

To mark changing places awareness day on July 19, the Changing Places Consortium – which oversees the campaign and is co-chaired by Muscular Dystrophy UK – revealed the ten biggest towns and cities with no changing places toilets - listing Basildon as eighth.

Shelley Symonds, of Billericay, who’s five-year-old son Fraser suffers from muscular dystrophy, admitted it is a regular problem finding suitable toilets.

She said: “It is disappointing that we do not have the facilities suitable and that everyone should have.

“Every human being has the right to go to the toilet in a dignified and safe way, but that is not the way it is at the moment.

“We are in 2018 and we live in a society were people are not being treated as equals and that will always be disappointing.

“I need to use facilities like this every day, but it is just a wish to use them every day at the moment.”

However changes have now been made.

The consortium is calling for at least one toilet in every town, and is also emphasising the need for changes to legislation to make changing places toilets mandatory in new large public buildings.

Councillor Kevin Blake, Basildon Council’s chairman of the leisure, culture and environment committee, said: “Last year Basildon Council and Everyone Active worked with Changing Places to get a disabled toilet facility installed at the Basildon Sporting Village.

“All other council-owned public buildings are equipped with disabled toilet facilities in line with current legislation.”