Southend should deal with its own household waste, not dump on other areas, councillors have demanded.

Pressure is mounting on Southend Borough Council to provide its own waste dump after being severely criticised by county councillors for not proposing any suitable new sites in the borough.

The criticism came as a plan of waste sites across the county was finalised.

Household rubbish from Southend is currently sent to Barling, in the Rochford district.

Basildon councillor Bill Archibald told an Essex County Council meeting: "It seems strange to me that an area such as Southend, which sees itself as wanting to be master of its own destiny, is singularly reluctant to provide a site for its own waste.

"Two of the planned sites are in Basildon, and we also have a toxic waste dump.

"It is time this council did something to find their own waste sites."

His views were backed by councillor Graham Fox of Rochford.

He said: "One of the sites is in my division and we take waste from Southend.

"Southend has been allowed to expand so much out of all proportion to the facilities in the area.

"The whole situation with Southend is disgusting. They have nowhere else to expand so their traffic and their waste is all spilling out into the Rochford district. We have got to stop this."

Southend has teamed up with Essex County Council for the waste plan, which will be put out to public consultation by the end of this year.

It deals solely with the locations of dumps, not the methods of waste disposal, and according to the outcome of the consultation, may be subject to a public inquiry in mid-1999.

Mike Pregnall, Southend Council's technical services assistant director, said sites in Southend were originally proposed and were not included in the final shortlist.

He said: "Long before Southend went unitary, there was an overall assessment of locations across the whole of Essex by the county.

"As Southend is so built-up no suitable site in the borough was included in the plan."

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