A council has been forced to apologise after its Twitter feed came alive with strange postings.

Medway council vowed to find the culprit who had apparently taken over the authority's social media feed.

Several tweets were posted before 8pm before they were quickly removed.

The rogue tweeter claimed the account had been taken over by the "citizens of Medway".

One posting by the hacker said: "Free parking across Medway tomorrow. Go on, fill your boots."

Another proclaimed: "As of tomorrow Medway council will be Labour controlled".

That tweet came the day before elections were due to be held to decide who controls Kent County Council, although Medway isn't included in the vote.

In response to a tweet saying: "What would you like to see your new counncil (sic) do?" another official-looking tweet said: "First policy - free council tax for all. You won't need to pay any more council tax from now."

Another one said: "Second policy. Park where you want - no more tickets."

The tweets were soon followed by people taking to social media to respond.

Lauren Wright wrote: "Oh someone hacked @medway_council Permission to giggle?"

This was followed by a tweet from the official spokesman which read that the account had been hacked, and apologising for any offence the tweets caused.

A Medway council spokesman said: "We took action to secure the account as quickly as possible and we are really sorry for any offence caused by the messages by the hacker.

"We take the security of our accounts very seriously and, of course, we are looking into how this happened."