A parish council chairman locked horns with a road worker after taking it upon himself to remove cones put in place to manage traffic heading to the Kent County Show.

Stockbury Parish Council chairman Dave Tomsett was involved in an "altercation" after taking away cones blocking crossovers on the A249.

It comes as a row erupts among residents of Stockbury and the organisers of the popular event's traffic management.

The traffic management system that has been put in place to ease entrance to and exit from the show includes closing off crossovers on the A249, which enable drivers to turn right off the dual carriageway at certain points.

Mr Tomsett says blocking off these crossovers is "ridiculous".

"Every year for the last three years, Kent County Showground have decided that they will close the crossovers.

"This isolates places like Stockbury, as drivers coming from junction 5 of the M2 are forced to drive the length of the A249 to the M20 junction 7 roundabout, turn around, and drive back," he said.

Mr Tomsett said members of Stockbury parish had been told this would not happen this year, by members of Kent County Council and also Helen Whately, MP for Faversham and Mid Kent.

Despite these assurances, Mr Tomsett found the crossovers had indeed been blocked off with traffic cones this morning.

He then removed the cones to reopen the crossover, and subsequently got into a row with a traffic management worker.

The staff member said he was tasked with maintaining the closure of the lanes.

He had been told to put the block back up, but Mr Tomsett says his control centre later told the man to leave them down.

The parish council chairman was clear that he would be back out tomorrow morning to check the crossovers remained open.

"By blocking the road, not only are you isolating Stockbury, you are killing local businesses for three days," he said.

"I completely understand putting the blocks up in an evening when people are leaving the show and traffic is heavy, but the traffic this morning was flowing well.

"When the garden show was on a few weeks ago in the same location, the crossovers remained open. I don't see the difference."

Kent County Council confirmed at 3.50pm that they had come to an agreement with Mr Tomsett that the Stockbury crossover would only be closed during the exit phase of the show.

Earlier in the week, a KCC spokesperson told the Kent Messenger that the exit phase of the show would run from 12.30pm until 7.30pm.