Public toilets saved from closure in Mirfield have become a meeting place for gay men.

Town councillors who give up their time to look after the toilets have caught men together in cubicles.

Councillors Andrew White and David Pinder have called in police who are keeping a watch on the building.

The conveniences outside Mirfield Library at the junction of Huddersfield Road and Station Road were kept open last year after Kirklees Council withdrew funding.

Kirklees shut toilets across the district but Mirfield Town Council stepped in after a public outcry.

The town council pays more than £10,000 a year to maintain the service.

Clr White, a town centre grocer, told how graffiti appeared on the toilet walls and men began meeting there during daylight hours.

“There was one time that I went in there to check and had my suspicions about what was going on in one of the cubicles,” he said.

“I just said that I was locking the doors and that anyone inside should leave. One man shouted for me to wait and two men came out.

“They said one of them had lost something. I politely asked them to leave which they did.”

Clr Pinder has also had to ask men to leave and coded messages scribbled on the toilet walls re-appeared within days of him painting them over.

A man has been caught in the ladies’ toilets and Clr Pinder said he has also given a suspicious car registration number to police.

The toilets are open between 8am and 5.30pm when Clr White locks them for the night.

Used condoms, cannabis joints, knickers and underpants have also been found.

Councillors White and Pinder work tirelessly to keep the toilets open and save Mirfield taxpayers from extra costs. They have even cleared blocked drains themselves.

Over the Easter weekend vandals smashed a steel door plate off the door to the disabled toilet.

Clr White said: “The toilets are important to a lot of people. When we had the threat of closure older people were telling us they wouldn’t be able to shop in Mirfield if there were no toilets.

“There aren’t any public toilets in the supermarkets or the library.”

Clr White said he hoped to revamp the toilets with the help of sponsors once the undesirable element had been driven off.