Cash-strapped Castle Point Council is shutting six public toilets to cut costs, drug taking and indecent sexual behaviour.

Castle Point Council hopes to save thousands of pounds by shutting the toilets in Benfleet, Thundersley and on Canvey on Friday.

The closures come as a result of the year-long cost-saving review and as part of an initiative to stop "cottaging", inappropriate sexual acts in the toilets, vandalism and drug taking.

A spokesman said: "We have had issues of cottaging and drugs at these toilets and we did think about community safety while deciding whether to close them or not."

The spokesman said it was not the council's duty to keep the toilets open. He said: "We don't have to maintain them. We just chose to."