Fury as £13,000 robot used by council to paint lines on football pitches
A £13,000 robot has been bought by a council — to paint lines on football fields.
The droid uses GPS technology to mark out the two pitches.
But the council’s hi-tech approach in Maidstone, Kent, has failed to impress residents who say the cash could have gone on more urgent needs.
Paul Penny, who spotted the device being used, said: “My thoughts were, ‘£13,000 for public ground where it’s only kids and Sunday football played . . . are you kidding me?’.
“If it was a football club selling tickets for matches to pay for that sort of technology — OK. But it’s not.”
The robot’s maker says the model has been used to mark out 1.6 million fields around the world.
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It is controlled through an app which allows the operator to drop a template of markings over a picture of the field before setting it going.
Maidstone Council insists it is a time-saver for staff, freeing them for other tasks.
But dad-of-three Paul, 47, said he witnessed council workers with their hands in their pockets watching the robot do its work.
He said: “It’s a kick in the teeth when you see two blokes standing around watching a robot paint lines that they could quite easily paint themselves.
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“We haven’t got the infrastructure in Kent that we need and they're charging us more than ever for council tax.
“I’m not seeing the money being used in a reasonable way.”
The council said the robot marked out a field — a job that would normally take at least two hours — in 45 minutes.
It added: “The use of this robot is not to replace the worker but to increase the efficiency and number of duties undertaken by the operative.”