Families taking advantage of the October half term by visiting a popular park are facing disruption today.

With its car park already overflowing, all three of Cobtree Manor Park's parking meters are out of action.

It means visitors to the Maidstone park cannot pay to park by cash.

Signage covering the parking meters is asking visitors to pay via parking app RingGo - but some motorists are less than happy.

Retired newspaper sales worker David Fey said: "It's half term and there are dozens of people trying to figure out what to do - it's chaos.

"There are older people who don't want to use a credit card on their phone - even if they know how in the first place.

"I'm going somewhere else, I tried ringing the council first but they didn't answer."

Denise Cocksedge travelled down from Orpington to visit the park with family.

She said: "Not everyone has a mobile phone, if they're slightly older like I am, I'm not very good on mobile phones.

"I've never got an app on my phone before so I'm having problems getting it."

A spokesperson for Maidstone Borough Council said: “On Wednesday 24 October, we were made aware that all the pay machines at Cobtree Manor Park were out of service. We immediately sent our Operations team to investigate and perform frontline repairs, but it was necessary to call a mechanic from the manufacturer. The mechanic will be attending this afternoon and the machines should be back in service by tomorrow.

"We operate several pay machines at this site to try and avoid any issues should a machine develop a fault; however it appears all three machines suffered technical faults within a short space of time.

"In the meantime, customers are still able to pay by using RingGo. Details on how to pay can be found on stickers on the side of the machines.

"We apologise for the temporary inconvenience and thank visitors for their patience"