Publicans have offered to cough up cash to pay for a toilet attendant so holidaymakers can spend a penny.

Traders in Leysdown are so fed up with people using their loos because some of the public ones are closed, they have offered to pay council staff wages themselves.

Although the public toilets at the end of The Promenade are open all year, residents and traders say they are in a “filthy” state and people will not use them.

The Swale Borough Council-run, award-winning toilets at The Grove, with baby-changing and shower facilities, are open only at weekends until the end of June.

From July, they will be open daily until the second Sunday in September, when they will go back to weekend opening until October.

But Jackie and Chris Prime, who run the Talk of The Town pub, say that is not enough and they need to be open during the half-term holidays.

Last week, the couple’s business was inundated with holidaymakers using their facilities because The Grove ones were closed and the other ones were “disgusting”.

Jackie says the result is that their toilets are being left in a state and they have been forced to put up signs saying they are for customer use only.

She says her staff have threatened to walk out because they are being abused when they refuse people use of the facilities, one of their toilets has been broken, sand is left in the sinks and all over the floor, water is sprayed everywhere and there is toilet roll scattered around.

She said: “It’s making our lives a misery down here. We are turning people away because it’s our business and, although we feel horrible, we have got to draw the line somewhere – it’s ridiculous.

“There are no changing facilities at the top toilets and they are so filthy people won’t use them.

“We have all had enough of it.

“We are saying we will pay wages for a toilet attendant.”

A spokesman for the council said the opening of The Grove toilets had been that way since 2006.

He also stressed that The Promenade toilets, though not manned, were cleaned every morning and any misuse was down to vandalism.

In 2008, the Times Guardian reported that Leysdown traders were outraged after the council issued them with toilet rolls as a goodwill gesture when they complained about the public facilities being closed.

A spokesman for Swale Borough Council said: “There is a finite amount of money and this has to be used across the whole of the services that come under our cleansing team.

“If you apportion it somewhere different to what is being done at the minute then obviously another service will lose out as a result.

“This is also why the Spinney toilets are open and the Grove ones are currently not, as this is historically what was agreed and so this is what is in the contract.

“We are sympathetic to the views of the traders.

“While there has been no official offer to pay for an attendant, there has been an expression of interest shown – this being that some traders may club together to provide an attendant.

“This is what we will take back to members in due course to try and address the issue.”

A meeting between traders and the council’s street scene officer took place on Friday.

The outcome was that the council will produce a report for members that requests they look at different options for this time next year, to address the potential Easter and half-term holiday opening of The Grove toilets.