The droid cost Maidstone Council £13,000 (Image: SWNS)
A furious row has erupted in a UK town after the local council forked out £13,000 on an AI robot to paint lines on football fields.
Maidstone Council in Kent says it hired the droid in a bid to reduce the time taken to mark out sports fields – a move that has been branded a “‘ridiculous” waste of money by furious locals.
They say the money could have been better spent on better street lighting or public transport instead.
The council has been using the robot to mark two football pitches in the area for around three months.
The AI toy, owned by Maidstone Council’s grounds maintenance and parks team, works using GPS trackers mapped by an operator on a tablet, who drops templates of the pitches over the picture.
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The robot uses GPS trackers mapped by an operator tablet to paint the lines (Image: SWNS)
It then automatically follows the mapped-out lines whilst the operator can put their feet up and enjoy a cup of tea.
Local resident Paul Penny spotted the device being used a couple of weeks ago and questioned the need for such sophisticated and expensive technology being used for such a mundane task.
“My thoughts were: £13,000 for public ground where it’s only kids and Sunday football played… Are you kidding me?”, the 47-year-old said.
“If it was a football club selling tickets for matches to pay for that sort of technology – OK. But it’s not.”
The father-of-three, who works as a surveyor of optic networks, added that there were plenty of problems in the area that needed addressing and that the money spent on the robotic line painter could have been more appropriately spent sorting some of these problems.
“It’s a fancy bit of kit,” he said. “It’s impressive, but painting football pitches in a park does not return revenue.
“How are they going to get any money back?”
Locals are furious and say the money could be better spent on public services (Image: SWNS)
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He says there are problems with street lamps shrouded by overgrown shrubbery, a lack of public transport connections and facilities for children and even improvements to hospitals and doctors’ facilities which all could have benefitted from the money spent on the line-painting robot.
He added that the council had also recently bought a ‘massive’ electric transport van, which he estimates to have cost at least £60,000.
“The cost of that is just ridiculous,” he added.
“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.
“The council should be looking to put something in place for our kids, but instead we have got a robot and a van at probably over £100,000.
“We have not got the infrastructure in Kent that we need, and they’re charging us more than ever for council tax.
“We’ve not got enough doctors, the schools are under pressure, and yet we can go and spend a lot of money on a robot to paint lines.
“It’s a big waste of money. The country’s a mess, and you see something like this and you think: ‘We are spunking money’.
“It’s a liberty, to be honest with you. They could be spending the money on infrastructure rather than making people’s lives easier.
“I’m not seeing the money being used in a reasonable way. It’s ludicrous.”
Paul admitted he was so fed-up with problems in Kent that he was considering a move up north.
After he posted photos of the council’s robot on social media app Nextdoor, fellow residents joined in on the ridicule.
One local woman asked: “What else does it do? Or is it gainfully employed in painting white lines?
“What’s happened to the human who previously did the job?
“I guess he stands watching ready to admonish it when it has a hissy fit painting circles instead of lines.”
Paul responded there were two men watching the robot, and that one was stood with his hands in his pockets.
Other commenters defended the robot, though, saying it was extremely convenient for the football clubs that use the pitches.
Maidstone Council defended the elaborate purchase, claiming it saved plenty of time that council workers could now spend doing other jobs.
A spokesperson for the local authority said: “The use of this line-marking robot considerably reduces the amount of time required to mark out sports pitches.
“For example, it may take an operative 2 to 2.5 hours to manually mark out a football pitch from scratch, but it will only take the robot 45 minutes to complete the marking to an accurate standard.
“This saves time and allows the team to undertake other key works in the park.
“The use of this robot is not to replace the worker but to increase the efficiency and number of duties undertaken by the operative in a short period of time, thus ensuring that the council keeps its parks and green spaces maintained at the highest possible standard.”
