Police in riot gear used a crowbar to raid a Maidstone property in a drugs bust which saw 250 cannabis plants seized and one man arrested.

Witnesses reported seeing more than half a dozen officers, many of them armed with shields, descend on an address in Lower Stone Street - above the offices of TLP Recruitment - on Tuesday morning.

Adam Webster, 26, is a shop assistant at Cycles UK Maidstone, which sits opposite the site of the raid.

He said: "I don't know the building well, I think the bottom part is a business, with offices below, and then I think it's flats above.

"A police van turned up just after 8am and a lady went in first, followed by probably seven officers dressed up in substantial, specialist gear with shields - they weren't wearing what you'd call normal officer clothes.

"They used a crowbar to open the door up and went straight in and then saw someone being taken outside at about 9.30am.

"From the looks of things, it was a drugs bust, they seemed to take a lot of equipment like heaters and lamps.

"I was fairly surprised and shocked to witness it all, we don't tend to see that many police officers around in the area."

A Kent Police spokesman confirmed a 27-year-old man who was inside the property was arrested in connection with the cultivation of cannabis and remains in custody.

The raid required UK Power Networks to come out and isolate power to the property, but it seems engineers' work severed power to a neighbouring business.

Chris Durrant, IT manager at Cobens in Romney Place, said: "I got a message through just after midnight that all our systems were offline.

"At first I thought it was just the weather. None of our staff could work in the office today, some have been able to work from home.

"UK Power Networks haven't told us when we might be able to use the office again."

The financial services company in Romney House, Romney Place, has 15 members of staff.

A UK Power Networks spokesman said: "We turned off the power to two customers in Romney Place, Maidstone at 3.40pm yesterday, at the police’s request.

"A second customer had to lose power at the same time as their supply shared a connection.

"Work was completed in the early hours of this morning, but access could not be gained to the second customer’s property at this time.

"Our engineers are now on site completing the remaining electrical work as quickly and safely as possible. We apologise for any inconvenience caused."

Romney Place was closed in one direction on Thursday morning for emergency repair works.

UK Power Network's spokesman provided an update: "During our work yesterday we found and repaired an unrelated cable fault. This was not caused by us turning off the power.

"Our electrical work on site is now complete with supplies restored and the dug up area will be reinstated as quickly as possible."

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