We present results from an ongoing investigation using the Kilo Degree Survey ( KiDS ) on the VLT Survey Telescope ( VST ) to provide a census of ultra-compact massive galaxies ( UCMGs ) , defined as galaxies with stellar masses \mbox { $M _ { \star } $ } > 8 \times 10 ^ { 10 } \mbox { $M _ { \odot } $ } and effective radii \mbox { $R _ { e } $ } < 1.5 kpc . UCMGs , which are expected to have undergone very few merger events , provide a unique view on the accretion history of the most massive galaxies in the Universe . Over an effective sky area of nearly 330 square degrees , we select UCMG  candidates from KiDS multi-colour images , which provide high quality structural parameters , photometric redshifts and stellar masses . Our sample of \sim 1000 photometrically selected UCMGs  at z < 0.5 represents the largest sample of UCMG  candidates assembled to date over the largest sky area . In this paper we present the first effort to obtain their redshifts using different facilities , starting with first results for 28 candidates with redshifts z < 0.5 , obtained at NTT and TNG telescopes . We confirmed , as bona fide UCMGs , 19 out of the 28 candidates with new redshifts . A further 46 UCMG  candidates are confirmed with literature spectroscopic redshifts ( 35 at z < 0.5 ) , bringing the final cumulative sample of spectroscopically-confirmed lower-z UCMGs  to 54 galaxies , which is the largest sample at redshifts below 0.5 . We use these spectroscopic redshifts to quantify systematic errors in our photometric selection , and use these to correct our UCMG  number counts . We finally compare the results to independent datasets and simulations .