Major incident declared following 'significant' gas leak at West Sussex flats
Around 700 residents have been evacuated
Last updated 6th Jan 2021
A major incident has been declared by Sussex emergency services following a 'significant' gas leak at a large block of flats in Crawley.
Police, fire and ambulance teams were called to the site at Milton Mount Avenue after the incident was first reported at around 12.21am on Wednesday (January 6th).
Around 700 residents have been evacuated from the building and placed in temporary accommodation until the building is made safe.
There had been no reported injuries as of 6am on Wednesday.
In a statement, Sussex Police said it was working with other emergency service teams, as well as West Sussex County Council, Crawley Borough Council and Southern Gas, to resolve the incident 'as quickly and safely as possible'.
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.”