A LARGE mound of paint drums will be removed after being dumped in a street.

Residents raised concerns over the amount of drums that had been dumped near a skip in Colne Drive, Shoebury.

Southend Council were contacted about the waste who have since said the land belongs to Estuary Housing.

But the council has assured the waste is not toxic and it will be removed.

Steve Moore, executive director for neighbourhoods and environment, said: “We have been made aware of a number of paint drums left outside a block of properties in Shoebury.

"We have contacted Estuary Housing, who manage the land, to ascertain where the waste has come from, as it appears to be from a refurbishment job on one or more of the properties.

"The waste is not thought to be toxic, and Estuary Housing have confirmed they are making arrangements for the removal of the waste.

“Any residents wishing to dispose of household hazardous waste can do so by taking the waste to their local household waste recycling centre. I would urge any residents to report waste related incidents through MySouthend.”

An Estuary Housing spokesman said: "Estuary became aware of fly-tipping incident in Colne Drive, Shoebury over the Easter weekend.  A resident had arranged a skip to clear items from their property and an ‘unknown person has dumped tins of paint next to the skip.

"Once we became aware of this our Housing Officer has been been liaising with the resident, Southend Borough Council and their waste Contractor – Veolia, to arrange clearance of the empty paint cans.  

"As the fly-tipping has still not been removed we have arranged for our in-house estate services team, GEMS to remove these today.

"Our residents take fly-tipping seriously after we ran a very successful CLEAN and CARED FOR Campaign last year to remind residents what is classified as fly-tipping, which is anything not placed in a waste container. 

"We also reminded residents that Fly-Tipping is illegal and impacts everyone living in the community. 

"Where we found there were fly-tipping issues we spent time identifying the resident responsible and recharged them for removing the items."