A shopping centre is still without public toilets, nearly eight months after plans were hatched to re-open them.

It means shoppers and those arriving or leaving from Wisbech bus station either have to dive into a café or walk across town to St Peter’s Gardens public loos.

A spokesperson for NewRiver, owners of the Horsefair Shopping Centre said: “We apologise for the ongoing inconvenience of the toilets being closed.

“This is a complex matter relating to historic and ongoing anti-social behaviour.”

The spokesperson added: “We are working with Wisbech Town Council to explore potential options but there is no update to provide at this time.”

Town clerk Terry Jordan said the council has been involved “in a dialogue for many months” with NewRiver.

He said the aim remained for the council to lease the toilets.

The council would “operate the public toilets at the shopping centre; this would make them available for public use once again”.

Mr Jordan said: “There are a couple issues within the proposed lease which need to be resolved to ensure that the arrangement would operate in the best interests of the community.”

The council was “hopeful that progress can be made regarding the proposed lease by the end of this month”.

Earlier this year Mr Jordan had opened talks for a £37,000 annual lease of the toilets.

It would bring the loos back into use – for five hours daily, seven days a week – with a full-time attendant looking after them. The loos were last open three years.

On social media, council leader Samantha Hoy said talks with New River stalled over “service charges”.

She said this was “odd as they won’t say how much the charges will be and are now not answering our emails”.

Cllr Hoy urged Horsefair tenants to lobby their landlord.

Cllr Steve Tierney said the privately run firm was nothing to do with any council.

“They aren't obliged to do anything they don't want to; we’ve tried to plead with them. They don't care”.

One local councillor Billy Rackley pointed out the town had four betting shops. He suggested people drop in, place a 20p bet giving them entitlement to use their loo.

“All of these establishments have disabled toilets and you never know nice people you might even win,” he said.