A major operation was going on today to rescue a digger from a beach.

The bright orange £150,000 excavator broke down while repairing Neptune's Jetty in Sheerness on the Isle of Sheppey on March 13.

But it has taken 24 days for contractors to get permission to get it off the shingle and onto a low-loader.

Digger moves. Video: Chris Reed

Gary Clarke, site manager for Mackleys which is doing the £1.19 million maintenance work on behalf of the Environment Agency, admitted: "It has taken time to get all the paperwork in place."

The digger was trapped by the rising tide when a hydraulic hose burst.

Mr Clarke said: "There was nothing we could do. The tide beat us. We didn't have time to get a new hose and we didn't have any machine big enough to pull it out.

"All we could do was watch as the water came it."

But this morning the paperwork was completed and a low-loader was in position to take the digger away.

Engineers started work while it was still dark but the main rescue began at 7.30am.

The operation was watched by Bob Richards who captured it with a string of photographs.

They show a second yellow digger preparing a path over the shingle all around the jetty to make pulling the stricken excavator easier.

A bulldozer and then a tractor towed it round the end of the jetty once the tide had receded and then along the beach to Barton's Point where the digger will be pulled onto the back of a low-loader and driven away.

Mr Clarke said: "Although we got its engine working, all the electronic components were destroyed by the seawater."