Static charge - how to remove?

Have you got electric storage heaters Mark? I had one in my flat and it was awful for drying the air out and supporting static build-up.

If you just received the lens in the mail, I would suspect the charge came from the rubbing in the cardboard box. Esp. if it was not placed in a suitable or its original plastic bag first. There's a reason why electrical components/devices are shipped in plastic bags - and very expensive bags in some cases - it's not just to keep the packer's fingers off your equipment.

Nope, but in any case it has barely been in my flat as I only just received it.

It was in a plastic bag, quite possibly the original one and in the original box. Can't fault the packaging.

Now I'm not going to claim this thing is sucking up dust like a vacuum cleaner but it's definitely attracting more than I would expect. This evening I carried out a small experiment to see the extent of the problem (if you consider it a problem) compared to the Tamron 17-50 (which actually has a larger front element so in theory more surface area to attract dust).

I'll admit it's not exactly a scientific experiment but anyway, I held the DA 55-300 in one position with the lens cap removed for about three minutes and watched the front element closely (horizontally, so the front element is facing outwards, not upwards since if it were facing upwards you'd expect dust to settle on it anyway). I could see about four or five specks of dust appear on it per minute. I held the Tamron in the same position for the same amount of time and no dust appeared on it at all.

It's really only a minor thing and doesn't affect the fact that I'm still delighted with the purchase. It is most noticeable when trying to clean the front of the lens because the lens tends to pull the dust back off the cloth making it hard to clean it completely.