Additional reporting by John Nurden

A village is uniting to try and find a teenager missing from his home as fears grow for his safety.

Ryan Hughes, 17, was reported missing from Bull Lane, Eccles, near Aylesford, on Thursday, around 10.30pm.

Since then a police appeal for information has been launched and a CCTV image of Ryan walking along the High Street in Aylesford around 11pm that night has been released.

Friends of his family are leading a poster campaign with many businesses in Eccles and Aylesford displaying the leaflets.

Police have taken CCTV from several businesses in the village with staff helping their enquiries.

David House, who runs The Hengist restaurant, said he had provided CCTV and his staff had met with officers several times.

He said: "We worked through the night with officers from 10pm on Saturday right through into Sunday morning and we met with police again on Sunday afternoon and Monday.

"I'm very grateful to my staff. We want to do everything we can to help."

Jessica Harvey, 27, one of the bar staff at The Chequers in Aylesford, said her venue was able to help police.

She said: “The police came in Saturday asking for any CCTV footage we have of that night and between us and The Hengist restaurant, because we own that venue as well.

"We captured him walking down towards the bridge from Eccles and then cutting off between the houses just down the road; he looks as though he's going over the bridge.”

She said: “Search and rescue were out the back on Sunday and they’ve been there on and off since.”

“The CCTV image comes from us, that’s our cameras and that’s the footage we handed over.”

“We haven’t been able to do much more than that, but we are happy to help in any way we can.”

Other shops said they would display photos and posters in the efforts to help.

Police are understood to have taken CCTV from several neighbouring businesses and properties.

Meanwhile police divers were searching the River Medway on Sunday and again on Monday.

The Search and Marine Unit of Kent Police tweeted that it has been searching the river along with volunteers from Kent Search and Rescue.

It added: "Thank you to the local community in Aylesford for your help today as well."

Ryan is around 5ft 8in, slim built and has short brown hair.

He was wearing a navy hooded jacket with a white top underneath that had red sleeves, grey jogging bottoms.

He also had on navy and white Adidas trainers.

Police are appealing for the public's help to find him as well as coordinating searches.

Anyone who sees him, or knows where he is, should call the police number 101 quoting reference 18-0613.