Monkey hears of more woe at the BBC’s new £1bn HQ – and this time it’s hitting staff where it hurts.
So few of the toilets at New Broadcasting House are working that cross-legged workers are being forced to waddle outside to the nearest pub to answer the call of nature, according to one correspondent to the corporation’s in-house magazine, Ariel.
Rupert Brun, BBC Radio’s head of technology, unclenched for long enough to complain: “I’ve just had to try seven toilets across three floors of Broadcasting House before finding one that was actually available for me to use.
“I suggest we extend the meeting room booking system to the toilets.
“I know this would cost a bit and take several months to implement, but given that the time taken to repair a toilet such as the gents on the fourth floor of BH seems to be around four months, the project would still be worth doing.
“I can only guess that those in charge of such things don’t give a s***, but for the rest of us it’s getting uncomfortable.
“It’s actually quicker to pop out to the Yorkshire Grey, buy a pint and use their toilet than to find a working one in BH … hang on, what’s wrong with that as a plan?”
Because Rupert, you’d need to pop back to the pub within the hour – and thus a vicious cycle begins.
Much (justified) criticism of the toilets regularly being out of order at New Broadcasting House. http://t.co/qsV6YJV3pG via @jamesrhamilton
— Rob Corp (@RobertCorp) February 2, 2015
Andy Baker, in charge of the building’s management, said any building housing so many staff would encounter problems.
He told Ariel: “Like any workplace of this size, there will occasionally be problems that need resolving, but the overwhelming feedback we receive is that New Broadcasting House is a great place to work and we don’t recognise the picture being painted.
“The facilities management team at NBH work hard to ensure the building runs as smoothly as possible.”
A BBC spokesperson told the Daily Express: “We’ve pulled the chain on a number of maintenance improvements and are confident we’ll soon be flushed with success.”
