'Smell of gas' part of Power Station demolition preparations

Readers got in touch and others took to Twitter to report the smell in areas such as Great Western Drive and Fleet Meadow about 8.30pm.

Micky Bray, who lives in Laburnum Grove said he first noticed the smell at 8pm, adding: "The whole of Didcot town smells of gas."

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People also reported a difficulty being able to get through to emergency gas services, but when making it through to speak to some they reported being told there were lots of reports about the problem.

Emergency gas company SGN did tweet to say it was looking into the problem at the time.

Today it has been confirmed that the smell was a result of preparations taking place ahead of Sunday's power station demolition of the three remaining cooling towers.

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Site owners RWE tweeted about the issue.

People reported smelling gas in the Didcot area last night. It was not gas but odour that is added to domestic gas supply. It was part of the operations and preparations ahead of the demolition activities for Didcot A. There was no gas released and no risk.

— RWE UK (@RWE_UK) August 13, 2019

A spokesman from the National Grid added further information, and confirmed the smell had ‘most likely’ been caused by preparations for the demolition of the three remaining cooling towers at Didcot A Power Station, which included cleaning out an ‘odourant tankard’ yesterday.

He said a chemical is added to gas, which is naturally odourless, as a safety measure to ensure leaks are detected.

But reassured residents there was no evidence of a gas leak and the smell should be gone soon, but added if people continued to smell gas they should call the emergency number 0800 111 999