Birds, dogs, and even the odd fox are all common sights in our parks – but now it appears so too is a robot.

Owned by Maidstone council’s grounds maintenance and parks team, the £13,000 mechanical assistant has been helping draw football fields for the past three months.

It is mostly being used at Mote Park but has been spotted on occasion in South Park too.

The droid works using GPS trackers with the operator mapping out the field on a tablet and dropping templates of the pitches over the picture.

It will then automatically follow the mapped-out lines with no need for human interference.

Resident Paul Penny spotted the device being used a couple of weeks ago but questioned the need.

He said: “My thoughts, £13,000 for public ground where it’s only kids and Sunday football played. Are you kidding me?

“If it was a football club selling tickets for matches to pay for that sort of technology ok, but it’s not.

After posting posted online the droid became a talking point.

On resident replied: “What else does it do? Or is it gainfully employed in painting white lines?

“What’s happened to the human who previously did the job?

“I guess he stands watching ready to admonish it when it has a hissy fit painting circles instead of lines.”

This robot saves time and allows the team to undertake other key works...

Maidstone council has defended the bot and insists there are benefits to its use however.

A spokesperson for the authority said: “The use of this line-marking robot considerably reduces the amount of time required to mark out sports pitches.

“For example, it may take an operative 2-2.5 hours to manually mark out a football pitch from scratch, but it will only take the robot 45 minutes to complete the marking to an accurate standard.

“This saves time and allows the team to undertake other key works in the park.”

They also answered the question as to whether the robots were replacing humans.

“The use of this robot is not to replace the worker but to increase the efficiency and number of duties undertaken by the operative in a short period of time, thus ensuring that the council keeps its parks and green spaces maintained at the highest possible standard,” they added.

It’s not the first time the use of robots to help and assist humans has been controversial in the county.

Last year a joke-telling robot came under fire after being deployed at Darent Valley Hospital in Dartford to carry out cleaning work.

The automated droid also assists cleaning crews to keep the floors looking spick and span at Tunbridge Wells Hospital in Pembury but some questioned its usefulness.