'I'm stuck with a full skip I can't get rid of'

A woman says she has been left with a skip full of rubbish after the company that delivered it to her animal sanctuary went bust.

Elaine Wood usually rotates skips at her animal sanctuary in Orsett, near Grays, Essex, but one she had delivered in March is still sitting uncollected.

The BBC reported earlier this year that more than 200 skips were sitting uncollected across south Essex after Bobs Skips ceased operations.

The BBC has attempted to contact the business on several occasions but has not had a response.

Ms Wood said she still needed skips, so she had to call another company.

"So now I've got two skips on the land," she told BBC Essex.

She said she had "a bit of a panic attack" when she heard the firm had gone bust.

But she did not need her skip collected for a few months, and she thought the business would have a new owner by then.

"It's full, it's got mixed house household waste in it, it's got lots and lots of empty cans of dog food and cat food in it," she said.

"I've got a tarpaulin over it to stop foxes getting in and ripping everything up and chucking it all over the place, and it's becoming a little bit of a headache now.

"I have just been unable to find any information as to who I should phone to get it off my land."

Ms Wood has asked her new provider if it could take the skip, but it said it could not.

"They said they're not allowed to because it's not their property," she said.

And the 70-year-old is worried that allowing a third party to take it off her hands could land her in trouble if its owner ever returned to collect it.

The Environment Agency said: "We have suspended an environmental permit to manage waste at an address in Harvey Road, in Basildon.

"Specialist officers are investigating a potential breach of the permit, which was in place to ensure no activity posed a risk to the environment."

The Bobs Skips website now redirects visitors to a company called Essex Waste and Demolition Solutions, based in Upminster.

It told the BBC it bought the domain recently due to its high rankings in online search engines.

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