Forty gas canisters have been dumped in a car park at Trinity Sports Ground in Southend

The gas canisters, known as “hippy crack”, contain nitrous oxide. When inhaled, it can make people feel relaxed and euphoric.

The canisters have been found next to the car park near Kids Kingdom playground. Aaron Chesham, 20, of Newington Close, Southend, who works as a security guard, discovered the bottles last week.

He said: “I was at the car park around 10.30pm. I couldn’t report it to authorities as I didn’t have any signal on my phone.

“This is the first time I’ve seen them there, there were 40 of them and they were all used as well. They’re often used by party-goers at big festivals like Glastonbury.

“There’s always at least one car there during the night, so there must be regular users and police hardly patrol round there now.”

Paul Van Looy, Independent councillor representing St Luke’s, said this was not the first time users have left behind gas canisters in Trinity.

He said: “This certainly isn’t the first time we’ve had them in the vicinity. We cleared up about 50 of these gas canisters lying in the car park a few weeks ago.

“It’s an open car park so the council can’t put in gates to bar people from coming in at night. I will be in touch with Essex Police to see if anything can be done to patrol the area to keep it safe for residents.”

Brian Ayling, chairman of the Southend Council policy and resources committee, said: “These things are unacceptable. The policy and resources committee is developing a proposal to introduce a Southend Neighbourhood Patrol to create greater visibility of enforcement patrols.

“We are trying to get more uniformed patrols to control antisocial behaviour, violence and crime.

“At the moment the police force are starved of funds so we will have to survey the area ourselves.”

Mr Ayling is also concerned about young people who are involved in taking such substances.

He said: “The council has an incentive to guide young people who have been mislead into doing these things.”

A Southend Council spokesman, said: “We work with our partners such as Essex Police through the Community Safety Partnership and our multi-agency antisocial behaviour response team (SMAART) to tackle issues like this and would encourage residents to report incidents directly so they can be looked into.

“Residents can do this by calling the Police on 101, SMAART on 01702 423504 or by emailing smaart@southend.gov.uk”