SOUTHAMPTON council workers have found themselves at the centre of an online storm after a video wrongly depicting them dumping waste in a car park surfaced online.

The footage, shot by a Southampton teenager, showed one of the men throwing a large piece of plastic rubbish towards a waste-filled corner of the car park, in Castle Way.

The men were donned in high-vis vests and standing at the rear of a Southampton City Council-branded van.

The footage has sparked outrage from several Facebook users, with more than 30,000 people having watched the video on the social media platform so far.

But Southampton City Council (SCC) has hit back at claims the workers were flytipping, and said the waste in the corner consisted of rubbish sacks and cardboard collected from city centre car parks, which were “temporarily stored” before being removed for disposal.

The authority admitted it was “not ideal” that waste was temporarily being stored in a public place, and it would be installing some form of lockable storage to address the matter soon.

SCC added that “more suitable arrangements” had been made since the video was posted by the teenager, who the Daily Echo is not naming.

He uploaded the footage to Facebook, prompting a barrage of reactions, comments and shares from Facebook users.

One Facebook user urged SCC to investigate and branded the actions as “disgusting” and a way for the workers to “knock off earlier”

Another said the rubbish was “unsightly and unsafe”, even if the council workers were legally free to dump it.

One poster, who said her son uses a wheelchair, said: “If I reversed into that bay and got his wheelchair out and put it up ready for him to use, the chair and myself could be stood in the rubbish.”

They added: “Rubbish bags contain numerous amount of hazards that can cause damage and injury to people.

“Disabled people have enough problems with parking and getting wheelchairs out of cars without the council using the back of their parking bays as a dumping ground for rubbish.”

But others have jumped to the defence of the workers, with one person pointing out that the area was a rubbish collection point and that the men were “just doing their job”.

Another person said the car park is shared with the street cleaners by "mutual consent”, adding: “It is Southampton City Council land.”

A spokesman for SCC said: “The video posted on Facebook shows SCC staff temporarily storing rubbish sacks and cardboard collected from city centre car parks which is then removed for disposal using an appropriately equipped vehicle two to three times a day.

“Clearly it is not ideal that waste is being temporarily stored in a public place and we will be installing some form of lockable storage to address this soon.

“In the meantime more suitable alternative arrangements have been made.

“We are grateful for people pointing out potential issues such as this one as this helps us to improve the services we deliver."