A CHURCH’S toilet has been twinned with a loo in rural Sierra Leone as part of a scheme to improve health and hygiene in impoverished countries.
Barnard Castle resident Ian Blake, who arranged the twinning of St Mary’s Church loo with another in the north African country, hopes that more organisations and groups in the town will sign up to the scheme.
He said: “One in three people in the world don’t have a loo. Having a safe loo to use brings security and it provides hygiene.”
By contributing £60 to the Flush Away Poverty toilet twinning scheme, one new toilet can be put up in a country where facilities do not exist and ill health through poor hygiene is rife.
Mr Blake, who started the scheme by encouraging members of St Mary’s community choir to make a donation, now wants other groups, such as restaurants, pubs and schools to do the same.
He said: “In one evening at choir practice, for £2 a head, we could fund a loo. It was fantastic how people responded so positively.”
The 62-year-old has coined the campaign “Help Barney flush away poverty and be a Toilet Twinning town” and he will be chatting to the town council’s partnership committee.
Anyone interested can email Mr Blake at barneystoi
lettwinning@gmail.com
![A COUNTY councillor is backing a campaign to get a pedestrian crossing in Staindrop. Frustrated parish councillors in the village summoned their county council representative Cllr George Richardson to their latest meeting to discuss several issues, including the call for a safe way to cross the A688. Earlier this year their request for a crossing was turned down by the county council’s highways officers. Parish council chairman Jonothan Raper described the reasons for the refusal as “spurious” and called on Cllr Richardson to support their campaign. He added: “One of the arguments they made was there is no clear line of desire when they studied the village – well this isn’t a clear line of desire because there isn’t a crossing, people cross whenever they can. “When the lollipop person was there, one of the things I noticed was people would walk all the way down to the lollipop person to cross the road to go to the shop or to go to the school.” He added a problem of parking at the primary school is exacerbated because people are too afraid to walk their children across the road. Cllr Richardson said he had supported previous attempts for a crossing point with the first being made about 15 years ago. He added: “We went fairly well down the road with that and they looked into it. The only recommended place was where the bus stop is and to get the visibility splays, people on the other side of the road would lose their parking. “That didn’t go down well so it just died a death.” Cllr Raper said he suspected the real reason for the officers’ refusal was the cost of installing a crossing. He added that much of the cost could be recovered from savings made on not having to employ a lollipop patrol. Cllr Raper said: “A lollipop person only provides a benefit of crossing for three hours of the day. You are getting 21 extra hours of crossing time [with a pedestrian crossing].” Cllr Richardson said he would raise the issue with the county council’s cabinet member for highways, Cllr John Shuttleworth.](https://teesdalemercury.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/georgeR-120x86.jpg)
