Wellington residents tell of evacuation shock over suspicious package

A 19-year-old man from Wellington has been arrested on suspicion of making an item capable of causing an explosion in the town.

The drama began at 6.40am yesterday when the package was found in Victoria Road, near the entrance to the Wellington Medical Practice and taken into the police station nearby.

The bomb disposal unit was called and had to make two controlled explosions.

Scores of people, including some in their pyjamas, were evacuated from their homes during the drama and taken to a supermarket.

Those living in Glebe Street and Victoria Road in the town were initially warned to stay in their properties and away from windows after the package was handed into the police station at 6.40am yesterday.

But as the situation developed, the residents of the Victoria Road Apartments and Heywood Lonsdale Court were told by police they had to leave their homes.

Ahmad Shaik, 32, who lives in the Victoria Road Apartments with his wife Shafiya, said the police knocked on their door at around 8.30am and said that the couple had to leave. Mr Shaik said: "It was a total surprise, so I took my wife to a friend's before I headed off to work."

Heywood Lonsdale Court provides retirement and sheltered housing and its residents were asked to leave their apartments just before 9am.

Resident Gwynedd Brown, 89, didn't hear the police knocking on her door.

She said: "I was asleep and didn't hear the police, I was eventually woken by Joan, the site manager, who said I had to leave."

Another Heywood resident Shirley Bidgood, 79, said: "I managed to get my jeans and shoes on, but had to keep my pyjama top on.

"I lived in South Africa for 30 years, so I am used to dealing with security problems and obviously it was much worse over there than here."

Nathan Harry, of St John's Street, added: "I was concerned at first, you hear the sirens and wonder what is going on.

"But the threat level in this country is high at the moment and there is constant talk about another terrorist attack being imminent.

"I wasn't surprised at what unfolded here, people expect something to happen – it's the world we live in at the moment."

The incident and the need to evacuate the residents triggered Telford & Wrekin Council's Civil Resilience Team to initiate their emergency plan.

The plan involved minibuses taking the elderly residents to Tesco on the Wrekin Retail Park, where they would be looked after until it was safe to return home.

Nicola White, the transport manager, was onsite at Glebe Street to organise the transfer of the residents from Heywood Lonsdale Court to Tesco.

She said: "Our major evacuation plan was put into operation and the Tesco site was the designated place of safety.

"One of the residents said that if she had known she was going to Tesco she would have brought her purse."

At the Tesco site, council representatives met the residents from the bus and escorted them to the Tesco staff canteen.

Helen Gordon, emergency planning officer for the council, said she had received a call at just after 8am from the out-of-hours emergency team.

She said: "As soon as I got the call we implemented the emergency plan and it was great to see it went so smoothly."

Residents who had to be moved from Heywood Lonsdale Court included Nadine Jukes, 84, who said that Tesco had looked after her well. Derek Coombe, another resident, said he was in the shower when the police knocked on his door at 8.10am.

He said: "I didn't hear the police knock and it was the manager who came to me and said we had to be evacuated. They have taken good care of us and it has certainly been a more exciting day than I imagined. I was only going to the shops today."

In charge of looking after the residents at Tesco was deputy manager Nathan Howells.

He said: "This is the first time he had been involved in an emergency evacuation since I joined the company 14 years ago. We are one of the civil recovery centres used by the council and it is good to play our part."

A police spokesman confirmed the arrested man was not the same person who had initially taken the package into the police station.

Superintendent David McWilliam said: "We'd like to thank everyone in the area for their patience while we dealt with this situation and made the area safe.

"Military personnel carried out two controlled explosions.

"At this early stage of the investigation we don't believe the package was a viable device, but I hope that people understand the precautions we had to take."

Council spokesman Russell Griffin said: "I feel that we reacted quickly in evacuating residents of the affected apartment block quickly once we knew this was a credible threat."

The incident in Wellington was resolved just before midday, with the suspicious package found not to be dangerous.