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Hundreds evacuated from council-owned block following gas leak
Around 700 residents were evacuated from a council block in West Sussex last night due to a “significant” gas leak.
Emergency services responded to reports of a leak within the Crawley Borough Council-owned block on Milton Mount Avenue at around 12:20am this morning.
In a joint statement, West Sussex County Council and West Sussex Fire & Rescue Service confirmed information from Southern Gas Network “indicated that a significant leak of natural gas had occurred”.
Six fire engines and an incident command unit attended the scene, alongside staff from West Sussex Council, Sussex Police, South East Coast Ambulance Service and Crawley Council.
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“A multi-agency approach has been developed to support the temporary relocation of affected residents, this includes the transportation of residents to temporary accommodation while maintaining COVID-19 precautions,” the joint statement said.
The exact cause of the gas leak has not been determined, however the police said it is not believed to be criminal.
No injuries have been reported.
In a separate statement issued at 05:34 this morning, detective chief superintendent Steve Rayland said: “This is an ongoing incident which has caused huge disruption to hundreds of people on a cold January morning, and I’d like to thank everyone for their patience and understanding as we continue to work with our partners to minimise the ongoing disruption.
“We are working hard to ensure this is dealt with as soon as possible to enable everyone to return home, however this may take several hours yet. In the meantime, we are urging everyone to stay away from the area to allow the responding agencies to focus on resolving the incident to allow residents to return home.
“The exact cause of the gas leak is yet to be determined but not believed to be criminal and we will provide more information as soon as we are able to.”
Crawley Council has been approached for comment.
