ARMED police surrounded a house in Gardenia Close Frindsbury, near Strood, following reports of a man brandishing a firearm.

About 20 officers and trained negotiators werre involved.

The sIt is not thought there is anyone else in the property. A mobile control room has been set up in a van parked in the playground of Temple School in Cliffe Road where paramedics were also on call.

Residents living nearby were being given advice on whether to stay inside or venture out as they tried to go about their every day business. Pupils at Temple School and Hilltop Primary School in Hilltop Road attended classes as normal.

An armed response Landrover was blocking the entrance of the smart cul-de-sac off the busy Cooling Road. One resident, father-of-three Mark Parker, could not get back to his home after staying with his sick mother overnight.

He said: "We only moved to the Close last November. We only moved here because it is a nice, quiet road so it is a bit of a surprise to have something like this happen on your doorstep."

Sean Murphy, who lives in Wavering Close, said he awoke to see "lots of police with lots of guns". And a pensioner, who did not want to be named, living in Cooling Road, said:"It is wrong to know that something has happened and we don't know what it is. All we have seen is lots of police.

A police spokesman said negotiations with the man were continuing.