A Christmas lights switch-on event should be a night of family fun as people cheer on as the illuminations are turned on. 

However, in North Walsham the festive mood turned sour after its public toilets were closed during one of the town's biggest events on Saturday.

It led to people saying children were forced to urinate outside near the toilet block in what was described as a "deplorable situation".

The toilets at Vicarage Street car park remained locked for the busy event as their owner, Norfolk Norfolk District Council, was not made aware of the switch-on event. 

READ MORE: Bomb disposal team at Mundesley beach as ordnance found

The toilets at Vicarage StThe toilets at Vicarage St (Image: NNDC) READ MORE: North Walsham left with yellow or no water amid mains issue

One local reported: “There were lots of people trying the doors and some small children not being able to wait and going outside near the toilets.”

Another described the situation as "deplorable".

A picture of the celebrations from 2022A picture of the celebrations from 2022 (Image: Archant) Council leader Tim Adams said: "It's a big event and the organisers do a fantastic job, but on this occasion our team were not made aware.

"Normally we would do extra bin collections, do extra street cleaning and make sure the toilets are open a bit later."

He added that the council would be more on top of the situation from their end next year.

Public toilets have been a great source of controversy across the district after NNDC announced it was considering fully or partially closing 40pc of its toilets in an effort to plug a growing deficit of £1.3m.