Council claims smell of gas was not a leak; Transco tells family to evacuate home

Huddersfield Daily Examiner (Huddersfield, England), May 20, 2008

Byline: By BARRY GIBSON News Reporter

A FATHER is angry that he had to evacuate his terrified family from their home after he smelled gas.

Meltham man Martin Jenkinson believes faulty work by Kirklees Council caused a gas leak.

On May 8, an engineer from the council's Building Services visited his home at Helme Lane to service his gas fire.

Martin, 30, said: "The following day a manager came round and had a look at the fire. He put a sticker on it and said there was nothing to worry about and someone else would be round the next day to fix it."

Martin shares the house with wife Sabrina, 26, sons Lewis, four, and Dominic, seven, and daughter Charley, who is 18 months old.

He said: "We had the door open that day because it was a hot day, but when I closed the door I could smell gas.

"I called Transco and they told us to get out. I turned off the gas and opened all the windows."

Martin and his family and their next-door neighbours then evacuated their homes.

He said: "We had to rush the kids out. They were all screaming because they didn't know what was going on.

"I'm not happy at all." A council worker came round the following day to fix the problem.

The house is owned by Kirklees Neighbourhood Housing (KNH).

A KNH spokeswoman said: "We're sorry that Mr Jenkinson was concerned about his gas supply, but we can assure him that there was never any danger to him or his family.

"The work was inspected by a quality control officer as part of a random quality check. The officer found that the end of a redundant pipe behind the fire that used to feed an old back boiler was not completely sealed.

"He issued a corrective action notice to the engineer and, as a safety precaution, placed a warning notice on the fire that it should not be used. This corrective action notice was not for a gas leak as there was no leak.

"Both KNH and Building Services take gas safety extremely seriously. Mr Jenkinson did the right thing in contacting Transco when he smelled gas.

Fortunately, in this case there was no leak."

CAPTION(S):

SAFETY FIRST: Martin Jenkinson, his wife Sabrina, and one of their children, Charley, by the gas fire, where they experienced a smell of gas (AC130508Cgas-2)