Medway Council has apologised after issuing a false alarm warning of an incident at the LNG gas plant on the Isle of Grain.

The council sent out the message by text and phone warning just after 11am.

It said: "There has been an incident at the National Grid LNG Grain site.

"Please go indoors and stay indoors with immediate effect until told to do so otherwise. Further details will be provided by the emergency services via local news and radio."

The message was then followed 23 minutes later by another stating that the first message was a false alarm.

The second message said: "This is Medway Council, the last message received was a false alarm, we repeat, the last message received was a false alarm. We apologise for any inconvenience caused.

The council has since tweeted: "We are extremely sorry an automated text was sent out in error as part of weekly tests."

The automated system is in place to warn people living near the plant of any emergencies.

The 600 acre site is the largest gas terminal in Europe, importing a fifth of Britain's natural gas.

It has four main storage tanks, each larger than the Royal Albert Hall and able to store 190,000 cubic metres of gas.

A further four tanks bring the total storage capacity of the site to 1,000,000m3.