ARMED police have raided a house on a Southend street.

A stretch of Park Street was blocked by police cars from about 7pm today while armed officers stormed a property.

It is not known whether any arrests were made but two women, one in her 20s or 30s and another in her 40s or 50s, were seen in the back of a police car blocking the road from Hamlet Road.

A further three police cars were parked outside the raided property and a number of armed police had guns trained at the windows of the house.

One resident, who did not wish to be named, said: “We were in the street talking to people and saw a police car block the road and then another speed up the road.

“After that we saw a lot of people in the road shouting and at one point we heard one of the officers shout ‘Come out with your hands up.’

“This road’s really had its fill lately – a lot of drug dealing goes on around here, there was a murder and an attempted rape recently and now this.”

Police left the scene shortly after 8pm.

In February, Simon Meecham fatally stabbed his former partner Leanne Meecham at her home on Park Street and, last month, a nine-year-old girl was sexually assaulted in an attempted rape in the alleyway adjacent to Park Street.