CANNABIS with a street value of more than £1 million was grown on an industrial estate under the noses of nearby businesses before police seized 3,000 plants on Friday.

Two men – a 26-year-old from Epping and a 41-year-old from Waltham Abbey – were arrested after police raided the unit at Woodside industrial estate, Thornwood, near Epping, at 1pm on Friday.

The estate's landlady, Isabel Halldis, said she had no idea what was going on in the unit and the police were alerted after they were told about the smell of cannabis coming from the warehouse.

“I didn't even know the person who rented the unit,” she added. “It was a sub-let job and I'm furious.”

Neighbours said the unit had been occupied for about nine months, but they had seen little of its inhabitants and had not noticed anything unusual.

An employee at nearby Epping Fancy Dress, Tom Kemp, 24, said he had only come across the occupants of the unit when they dumped rubbish outside the shop.

“They were dumping office furniture and food,” he said. “One week they threw lentils and naan bread outside the unit.

“There was no sign of anything going on apart from that.”

His manager, Lee Robinson, 35, said: “You see people in the evenings that you don't normally see, but everyone keeps pretty much to themselves."

Another neighbour, Phil Nation, 43, who runs Wizzywig printers on the estate, said he believed the crooks had stolen electricity from the mains cable of another business.

“The first I knew was on Friday when the police vans and everything else pulled up,” he added. “They'd been nine months in the place, but I don't know how long they'd been doing it.”

The two men arrested have been released on bail to return to Harlow police station on April 1.