PUBLIC toilets just yards from Thanet's family beaches have been listed as top spots for gay sex on a seedy new website.

A USA-based website cruisinggays.com recommends more than 20 hotspots in Thanet as places to have sex with strangers.

The site, launched last November, allows users to rate and review "cruising spots", most of which are public toilets.

The site lists a top 20 of toilets – known as "cottages" by gay men – in the Thanet area with tips about what type of people use them.

A spokesman for Thanet council said: "Cottaging has been a problem in the past, but has declined recently. This is, in part, down to measures the council has put in place, which include introducing stainless steel partitioning in some locations and removing any obscene graffiti or magazines.

"We have also reduced the opening hours of some toilets, so they close earlier in the evening."

Among the places named on the site are toilets in Stone Bay, Minnis Bay car park and Station Road, Westgate.

Many of these "cruising" locations are heavily vandalised with graffiti arranging meet-ups or with peep holes (known as "glory holes") being bored into cubicle doors and walls.

Police have promised to stamp out any unacceptable behaviour.

Viking ward PCSO Brian Lamberton said: "We have had reports of it happening. Only two weeks before Folk Week cleaners told us about a suspicious man waiting in the toilets. There are families here, it's not nice."

A police spokesman said: "If residents are concerned that this may be going on, please report it and we will be able to investigate it. If it were to become an ongoing problem then clearly it could have a detrimental impact on people's quality of life and our neighbourhood officers would work with our partner agencies to stop that behaviour.

"People should be mindful that if they engage in these activities they risk arrest, and if charged their court appearances may be reported in the local press."

Cottaging is outlawed under the 2003 sexual offences act. In 1998 pop star George Michael was famously arrested for cottaging in a public toilet in Los Angeles.

The website administrators were contacted but had yet to comment as the Gazette went to press.