Northern Gas Networks warns members of the public not to become complacent

Work is ongoing to identify a ‘gas-like’ odour in the Teesside area.  In November, Northern Gas Networks (NGN), the North of England’s gas distributer, convened a multi-agency response to help to identify the source of the smell after receiving a larger than usual number of calls from members of the public reporting an odour that they were concerned was natural gas.

The safety of members of the public is NGN’s priority and its rapid response engineers continue to investigate each and every report, but have not found any evidence that this is related to natural gas or the gas pipe network.

Through joint working with agency partners including Stockton-on-Tees Borough Council, Hartlepool Borough Council, Middlesbrough Council, the Environment Agency, Cleveland Police and Cleveland Fire Brigade and the UK Health Security Agency the location of the odour has been pin-pointed to around the Cowpen Bewley area.

Ian Waddle, Head of Customer Operations Support at Northern Gas Networks said:

“We are continuing to work with our partners in the region to identify the exact location and source of the odour in Teesside through a combination of on the ground observation and in situ monitoring using specialist technology. While we believe we’re a step closer to identifying the location of the odour, we know that the smell travels and it has been detected throughout the Teesside area.

Ian continued: “While this situation is ongoing it is vitally important that members of the public don’t get complacent and it is essential that if they smell anything that they believe to be natural gas that they call the National Gas Emergency Service immediately on 0800 111 999 so that our engineers can come out and investigate.”

The National Gas Emergency Service is in operation 24 hours a day, 365 days a year.