Commuters at one of Kent's newest railway stations say they are regularly missing trains and face long queues due to insufficient facilities.

Rail users have slammed the lack of ticket machines and ticketless options at Rochester, describing the situation as "utterly shambolic".

Currently there are only two machines available at the mainline Medway station – one inside and one out – which is said to often result in long queues and massive delays.

It led some people to compare the availability of new technology at the station to that found in "smaller villages".

Cllr Alex Paterson (Lab) has described the situation at Rochester as "utterly shambolic" and has flagged his concerns with Southeastern.

Addressing the rail provider on social media, Cllr Paterson said: "Any chance of some more ticket machines at Rochester?

"Utterly shambolic when passengers with pre-purchased tickets for collection are kept waiting in queues so long they miss their train. One outside and one inside concourse seems inadequate for population here."

The Labour councillor claims the two machines and two ticket office desks are not fit for purpose as they cannot cope with the demand.

Southeastern says it is in the process of rolling out modern tech solutions across its rail network so people can bypass the booths and head through the gates using their smartphones.

The new Rochester station opened in 2015 following a substantial refit in a £26 million project and was labelled a "railway renaissance".

Like most places, passenger numbers at the tourist hotspot nosedived during lockdown before returning to near pre-pandemic levels.

According to statistics provided by Southeastern, between 2020 and 2021 Rochester station was used by 585,242 people. In the year prior to the pandemic it was 2,121,874.

Cllr Paterson said: "As people start to return to work in offices after lockdown, that’s perhaps highlighted the problem.

"In particular, the fact that people who previously had season tickets are now going into the office less frequently, and so are having to buy tickets on the day, whether or not they've purchased them in advance or not, they’re suddenly having to collect them from the machines."

He added that even when all the options – machines and ticket offices – were available, there could still be long queues.

As a result he says he now goes to the station months in advance to print his tickets ahead of time.

He added: "There’s all sorts of reasons why people, even travelling outside of peak times, are facing quite unnecessary queues or sometimes arriving with plenty of time to spare and still missing trains.

"The reason why I tweeted was exactly that. I had taken my son to the station. His ticket had been purchased in advance, but he wasn’t able to collect it.

"The facilities we have here for the Medway Towns, where we have tens of thousands of daily commuters, are not very different from those at smaller village stations, where way less people live and rely on train stations regularly."

Cllr Paterson also criticised the ticket machines for being overly complicated.

He explained that people who booked their tickets using mobile payment services, such as PayPal, still needed to insert their credit card to get tickets, adding this "doesn't achieve anything".

The Rochester West councillor says he does not know how the system copes during big celebrations and festivals, given how chaotic the station usually is.

He said: "When we have big events in Rochester, we have an influx of visitors which means more people are using the machines.

"These problems are just a bad advert for Medway and Rochester as a tourist destination if people are struggling to get tickets."

A spokesman for Southeastern said: "We are in the process of rolling out barcode ticketing across our network at the moment, with all stations and routes expected to be available by spring 2023.

"This will make the process of buying a ticket much easier for people who don’t already use The Key (a contactless smartcard) for their journeys.

"Barcode ticketing will enable people to hold their ticket on a smartphone – the ticket gates will scan a QR code."