Claims that safety worries at a Colchester tip have been settled were rubbished as "unbelievable".

This Is Essex revealed on Thursday homes bordering Bellhouse Pit in Stanway were at "very severe risk" of gas poisoning between December 1998 and February this year.

A shocking Environment Agency report said "gas migration" to nearby houses, including those in Warren Lane, was a high possibility as was flash fire and widespread vegetation die-back.

A spokesman for Ex Waste, which manages the offending part of the tip, told This Is Essex everything had been done to ensure there were no more problems.

But Stanway parish councillors dismissed his claims on Thursday night.

Christina Edwards said the so-called "passive venting curtain", which Ex Waste claimed had been put up to catch stray gases as a safeguard, had not been constructed.

She said: "There was no work done on it at all."

She said some emergency measures had been taken but was "very surprised" the spokesman should say it had all been carried out.

Other councillors hit out at what they claimed was Essex County Council's "complacency" over the issue.

Ex Waste are contracted to run the site by the county council.

Mrs Edwards said she was "quite appalled" at the county council's lack of urgency while council chairman Alec Wilkinson added: "The complacency with which the county council has dealt with this episode from day one is dreadful."

And in a reference to the possibility of an incinerator being installed across the road from Bellhouse Pit, Mr Wilkinson added: "All this does not bode well for the county proposals for a major waste site."

The parish council is to meet the Environment Agency and the county council on May 13 to discuss the problem and how to prevent it happening again.

No-one from Ex Waste or the county council was available for comment.

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