“Gangs” have threatened to throw acid in the faces of cleaners at a public toilet block, forcing Canterbury City Council to close the loos.

Staff members in William Street, Herne Bay, were threatened three times by groups of youths last week.

Each of these incidents took place in the afternoon and the decision was taken to close the lavatories at 12pm every day for a week from Thursday, May 3.

Council spokesman Rob Davies said: “Following incidents where members of staff from our toilets contractor Kingdom were threatened by gangs, including one where the threat involved acid being thrown in the face, we took the difficult decision to close the toilets in William Street.

“While we understand the inconvenience this may cause the public, and apologise for this, we are 100 per cent certain that people will agree these threats to the staff are totally unacceptable and that closing the toilets is the right course of action to protect the people who work hard maintaining these facilities.

“They have the right to be safe at work and it would have been irresponsible not to take the steps we took.”

Mr Davies added the threats had been reported to the police.

Town centre councillor Andrew Cook described anti-social behaviour as the "scourge" of Herne Bay.

"It's what most people complain about," he said. "People are getting intimidated and scared.

"Ten days ago a group of youths on the pier had threatened to brick people.

"Parents need to wake up pretty quickly before somebody gets seriously hurt."

The toilets returned to their usual opening times today.