MY boyfriend and I were visiting Poole Quay during the recent fine weather when we both felt the need to answer a call of nature. A signpost near the Lord Nelson pub indicated that relief was at hand a little further along the Quay in the direction of the old lifeboat station.

To our consternation, the first toilets we came to when following this sign were locked with a keypad and bore a notice which indicated they were for the exclusive use of Marina visitors and personnel only.

Further walking and frustrated searching eventually brought us to a dingy passageway in which some very indifferent public conveniences had been hidden away, presumably from the sensitive eyes of the millionaires on their yachts.

As someone who has lived in South Africa during the era of white minority rule, this incident has left me with a feeling of deja vu.

In Mr Cameron’s Big Society Britain, is wealth the new Apartheid?

GLENDA CARDY, Fairview Crescent, Broadstone