Vandals have been ripping down election stake boards across Swale.

Posters planted along the Lower Road in Minster on the Isle of Sheppey for Conservatives Andy Booth and Ken Pugh, who are standing in today's county council elections, were damaged overnight on Friday (April 28).

Jess McMahon, who chairs the Sittingbourne and Sheppey Conservative Association, said: "We were disappointed the posters we erected along the Lower Road on Friday were damaged overnight the same day.”

Liberal Democrats Anthony Hook (Faversham) and Eddie Thomas (Swale East) also lost 36 boards last week.

Mr Hook, a member of Faversham Town Council, said: “This was an outrageous attack on the democratic process. But all it has succeeded in doing is strengthening our resolve.”

A police spokesman said: "We have received several reports that a number of party political signposts have been removed or damaged."

Meanwhile, the Tories have been criticised for comments attributed to Swale council leader Cllr Andrew Bowles in his “In Touch” leaflet distributed within Boughton and Courtenay and East Downs wards calling for all new houses to be built in Sittingbourne and on Sheppey.

He wrote: “Since the drawing of the Thames Gateway area, Western Swale (Sittingbourne and the Isle of Sheppey) has benefited from millions of pounds’ worth of government investment in infrastructure. Housing must be sited there first.”

Sheppey Ukip candidate Richard Darby said: "This explains why Sheppey and Sittingbourne are being forced to take all this extra housing under the Tories despite our roads being woefully inadequate.”

On Tuesday, independent candidate Mike Walters took to Swale's streets pulling a trailer behind his car warning of the danger of the explosives on the American bomb ship SS Richard Montgomery. The wreck lies off the coast of Sheerness in the Thames Estuary.

He says if he is elected he will demand that USA president Donald Trump takes back the bombs.

Polling closes at 10pm tonight.