An interactive visual display on the Maidstone's bridges has been scrapped due to an unknown error.

Named Elemental, the work of art offered passers-by the chance to change the colour of lights on the two bridges by texting a number.

According to the borough council the service, which was launched in 2006, stopped working properly in July although signs inviting the public to interact with it were only taken down on Wednesday.

There are no plans to remove the lights from the bridges and they will continue to change colour on a timed loop.

A spokesman from Maidstone Borough Council said: “The Light Elements display has become an iconic part of Maidstone’s scenery, featuring every evening on ITV Meridian News.

“The council has been repairing intermittent problems with the texting feature since July, but due to the prohibitive cost of these continued repairs, it has now been agreed that this feature will be deactivated.

“The council does not receive any money from this and we would like to apologise to any residents who have tried to use it when it has not been working.”

When functional the feature used a rainbow of colours to symbolise nature’s different elements and the public could change the display by texting either earth, wood, fire, water or metal to a phone number.

A control computer then received the commands and changed the lighting sequences.

It was created by artist Peter Freeman and largely funded by the Channel Corridor Partnership, a service that provides advice on transportation that invested £200,000 into the artwork.

It was unveiled in December 2006 as part of a larger project to regenerate an 8km stretch of the river from Fant to Allington Lock.