by Simon Tulett

An estate agent has been forced to move after a police car ploughed into its shop window.

Staff at Sealeys Estate and Letting Agents were told their branch in Pelham Road South, Gravesend, had been left structurally unsafe following the smash, which also involved two other vehicles.

The police car, which ended up wedged in the front of a vacant pet shop next door, had careered off the road after hitting two other cars while on its way to a 999 call.

A spokesman for North Kent Police said it had collided with a Renault Clio at the junction with Salisbury Road, then hit a parked VW Golf, crashed into the estate agents before becoming embedded in the pet shop.

The shunted Clio and Golf both ended up squashed sideways against the estate agent shop front.

The pile-up, at about 11.30pm on Tuesday, June 1, left windows smashed and brickwork crumbling. Structural engineers were called in the next day to install supports to the damaged building.

Sealeys workers have since moved to the firm’s other Gravesend office, in Clive Road, and have diverted their old phone lines, but they are unsure when they will be able to move back.

Staff member Tim Thake said: “We’ve had to close the office down. The whole front extension is damaged and the loss adjusters have been so we’re getting quotes for the repairs now.

“We just had new window displays put in and a new table at the front, but luckily nothing else inside was damaged.”

The two police officers involved in the crash, a woman driver and male passenger, were taken to Darent Valley Hospital for check-ups, but neither was badly injured and returned to work the next day.

The driver and passenger in the Clio were also unharmed.

The police spokesman said no arrests had been made but the incident is automatically referred to the Independent Police Complaints Commission as it involves a police vehicle.