Giant wind turbines, a church securing a bespoke biscuit contract and hippos spotted in Rayleigh – did you fall for any of this year’s April Fools’ jokes?

With a glut of April Fools’ jokes testing the gullibility of south Essex’s residents, you can be forgiven for taking at least one seriously.

Here we take a look at some of the best floating around social media.

Philip Miller MBE, CEO of Adventure Island, had many heads spinning when he announced plans for two massive wind turbines to be installed at the seafront theme park.

Echo:

“Just one rotate of one of these will be enough to make all of our candy floss for a month,” he joked on Twitter.

The seafront business magnate further quipped: “If all goes well, we want to put a further two on the east side of the park and sell the surplus energy to EU countries.”

St John’s church in Southend also got in on the action, “announcing” a deal with biscuit giant McVities to ensure a regular and ongoing supply of choice biscuits.

Echo:

“With the kind of levels of consumption we were dealing with we felt it important to enter into a formal arrangement with a reputable brand,” the joked.

A mock quote from a source at the firm claimed kids who attended the church were able to “eat an average of 8 custard creams per minute!”

Rayleigh-based pest control Essex Pest Proof went for an April Fools’ classic, exotic animals on the loose.

Echo:

The firm claimed pygmy hippos were on the run, having escaped from a zoo.

“It’s believed a couple escaped from a local zoo around 10 years ago, and since then they have been able to breed and have now become an issue throughout the UK and especially Essex,” they said on Facebook.

Popular shopping centre Lakeside announced 'plans' to introduce mobile phone lanes.

Echo:

Bosses said they were also considering introducing ‘mobile marshals’ who would have helped 'police' the lanes using whistles and keep mobile phone users from straying outside.