Scandal of gas pipe lies

Gas officials lied about replacing unsafe pipes in the Black Country in a bid to meet targets, the Express & Star can reveal today.

One National Grid manager has been sacked and a major investigation launched.

The deception involves two miles of pipes in the West Midlands.

Potentially unstable pipes running through the Black Country are said to be among those "misreported" as having been replaced with plastic tubes.

It comes half way through a £320 million eight-year programme to replace those old iron mains in Wolverhampton, Sandwell, Walsall, Birmingham and Solihull.

The work is being carried out through a partnership between National Grid and engineering giants Morgan Est, under the banner of the West Midlands Gas Alliance.

WMGA said the work had since been done and that the deception had not caused any danger to the public.

National Grid spokeswoman Jane Taylor said the probe was in its final stages.

"So far the investigation has revealed the decommissioning of some mains was being reported as complete before the work was actually done in order to meet performance targets," she said.

"As a result of this one employee has been dismissed.

"We are satisfied that there was no safety risk as the decommissioning work was still being carried out, only the completion date was being falsified in the records."

She added that the targets were set internally by WMGA and that it was too early to say if police could be called in when the investigation is complete.

Morgan Est spokeswoman Laura Bradley said: "Morgan Est operates a zero tolerance policy on the misreporting of information.

"As there is an ongoing investigation, we are unable to make any further comment."