Access to payday loan websites from all council computers is to be denied.

Liberal Democrat councillors Liz Philips and Mahmood Hussain put forward a motion at a full council meeting on Thursday to take a similar stance to other councils in banning access to the websites of loan shops and payday loan companies.

The Labour Party then submitted their own amendments, which suggested future action over access to the sites should be dealt with by chief council officers, before the motion was passed.

Liberal Democrat Group Leader Cllr Robert Sullivan said: "This is largely a deprived area, and to have payday loan websites available on council computers can cause a lot of problems for people borrowing from these sites.

"We shouldn't be encouraging people to take loans they cannot afford to pay back and the consequences is a vicious spiralling of debt.

"We (as a council) will continue to do everything in our power to deny users of council computers from accessing these sites."  

A Guardian reporter managed to access 11 payday loan websites in the space of 15 minutes at Highams Park Library on Friday. However the council said it is doing everything in its powers to ban access to the sites.

Prior to the council meeting on Thursday, Cllr Bob Sullivan said he and his colleagues also managed to access the sites from a nearby library and at the Town Hall.

A spokeswoman for the council said: "We have blocked several websites to date but as these companies employ different tactics to prevent blocking - including frequently changing their domain names – we are continuing to explore different blocking methods.

"This includes ongoing discussions with public and corporate internet filtering companies, who are working with us to try to identify a solution we can implement across all council computers."