PERVERTS are to be stopped from congregating at a lay-by near Maidstone for sex sessions, it has been revealed.

Urgent action has been ordered by Kent County Council following an exclusive revelation in last week's Kent Messenger.

Trees and bushes which hide the lay-by from the A249 at Stockbury will be cleared and a fence put up to stop people getting into the woods as part of a £250,000 revamp of the road this year.

Officers, who promised to look into all options to solve the long-running problem, said they were reluctant to close the lay-by because it is a resting place for long-distance lorry drivers.

Last week's revealed how the newspaper discovered a hooded, naked man handcuffed to a tree, wearing a sign inviting abuse.

Cllr Richard King (Con), KCC's cabinet member for strategic planning, said: "I was shocked when I saw the front page of the Kent Messenger. We will take action this financial year and I have put pressure on the engineers to get it on with it, hopefully in the next few months."

Cllr King said a similar problem had been solved at Hothfield Common, near Ashford, by putting in picnic tables and changing the nature of the area.

"We can do the same thing on the A249," he said. "We will make it more open and attractive to families as a stop-off point, so it will be used legitimately."

Local residents, who have been campaigning for years to have the lay-by shut, say they have found naked men hiding in hedges or openly committing indecent acts sometimes in their gardens.

Lorraine Thatcher, landlady of the Three Squirrels pub on the A249 at Stockbury, said the perverts created tent-like "dens" out of branches on her land which they use to store magazines and deviant equipment.

For a conviction, police must prove that a "lewd, obscene or disgusting" act could be witnessed by at least two people and that they would be outraged by it. Home Secretary David Blunkett has proposed law reforms to give police more power to crack down on the sex pests.