As urged by the Government, we travelled to Kendal from Ulverston this morning having been assured by the media and South Lakeland Council that Kendal was open for business.

I specifically checked the SLDC website and it stated:

“Most public toilets will be open from June 15.

"If there is a change to the location of the usual toilet facilities signage will show where the nearest toilets are.

"There will be less toilet provision than normal and you may have to queue.”

This was not the case.

The toilets in cafes and pubs are of course closed but so were the toilets in Westmorland Shopping Centre and Kendal Town Hall.

The toilets at Booths were closed until 11am when their café opened.

None of the closed toilets had signage saying where you could find toilets open.

Having arrived at 9.30am this was not really helpful.

The council is misleading shoppers.

In addition very few shops were open which was very disappointing and yet SLDC were charging for their car parks.

No concessions, no additional time to take account of the time you need to queue for shops and banks.

Basically our visit was a waste of time and effort.

We came prepared to spend money.

The majority of shops in Westmorland Shopping Centre, Elephant Yard and Wainwright’s Yard were closed and very few were open across the town.

Kendal open for business, I think not.

Disappointed of Ulverston

A spokesperson for South Lakeland District Council said: “Government announced that more businesses and high street shops could begin to reopen from June 15.

"We made it clear that not all businesses would reopen on June 15 and that some businesses may decide to remain closed, while others may open initially with reduced hours. Our advice was that people should check before travelling that the business whose services they wanted to use would be open.

“SLDC does not manage any public toilets in South Lakeland. Public toilets are managed by a range of organisations and community groups, including town and parish councils. We know that these organisations have been working hard to reopen their facilities and our understanding is that the majority of public toilets across the district are now open, but in light of coronavirus guidance they have had to erect signage, have revised cleaning regimes put in place and some have introduced contactless payment methods. This may have meant some facilities were not ready to open on June 15.

“In Kendal signage is now in place directing to publicly available toilets under the Courtesy Toilet Scheme. Unfortunately, as your correspondent correctly notes, this signage wasn’t in place on 15 June as we were still working with the businesses who manage the toilets to understand which ones in the town would be available, but the signs were in place by June 18.

“Measures have already been introduced to hopefully reassure people returning to the high streets, but this is an ongoing process and as we continue to work to support our businesses will be subject to revisions and improvements as the weeks go on. We would ask that people recognise that things are far from back to normal yet and not everything will be open or operating as usual in our town centres for some time to come.’’