A RAILWAY station was evacuated and a major road closed after contractors working on an £800,000 access improvement scheme damaged a gas main.

Passengers and staff were cleared from Durham Railway Station and the A691 Framwelgate Peth, one of the city’s busiest roads, was closed after the accident at around 11am on Wednesday.

Workers drilling a borehole as part of work to improve access to the station for cyclists and pedestrians inadvertently damaged a medium gas main, resulting in what Northern Gas Networks described as “a large leak.”

Police and fire crews attended the incident and the East Coast Main Line was closed through Durham for five hours because the source of the leak was so close to the station, with train services disrupted for thousands of passengers.

TransPennine Express services from the south terminated at Darlington, while Virgin Trains Services and Cross Country Services were diverted through East Durham where possible and in other cases terminated at York.

While engineers worked to repair the damaged main, Framwelgate Peth was closed to all traffic between County Hall and Millburngate Roundabout, causing knock-on tailbacks through the city centre throughout the afternoon.

John Reed, Durham County Council’s head of technical services, said: “While drilling a borehole as part of preparatory works for improvements in the area a gas main was damaged by our contractors.

“We have liaised with Northern Gas Networks throughout the planning and drilling stages and, despite following all standard protocols, it appears that the mapping of where the pipes were underground was not accurate.

“We’re very sorry for the inconvenience caused.”

The full closure of Framwelgate Peth was lifted late in the afternoon, although one lane heading into Durham remains closed while work continues to repair the pipe.

John Richardson, customer operations area manager at Northern Gas Networks said: “The safety of members of public is our number one priority.

“We reopened the East Coast Main Line at around 16.03 today after making the situation safe.

"The two outbound lanes on the A691 Framwelgate Peth have also been reopened to traffic and we’re currently reopening the inside inbound lane. The nearside inbound lane will remain closed while we continue to work to repair the pipe.

“We’d like to apologise to customers for the inconvenience caused and thank everyone for their patience.”

The works, announced last month by Durham County Council, are designed to improve access to the railway station for cyclists and pedestrians.

Month-long preparation work including ground investigations and tree cutting started on February 1, with the main work to install a new path and stairs due to take place in the summer.