A FAMILY fled their home after a ‘strange’ smell filled their house and caused headaches in Poole.

Philip, 41, and Natalie Partridge, 32, said they were worried for their 16-month-old daughter when a gas-like substance filled their home on Petersham Road in Creekmoor.

The couple were relaxing on the evening of Monday, January 15, when Philip noticed a ‘funny smell’.

He said he passed it off but noticed it again at around 8pm, when he began to think it was a gas leak.

“I checked with my wife and walked round the house, where we noticed it was really strong in the kitchen,” said Philip.

“Naturally a bit worried, we’ve got a toddler in the house, so we phoned the gas emergency line and within 10 minutes an SGN van pulled up.”

The engineer told the pair the gas network had been ‘flooded’ with calls from the Creekmoor area.

After a full inspection, he determined there was no gas leak and although the odour smelled like gas, he believed it was sulphur.

“My wife and I were starting to get a headache from it and obviously with the toddler there, it wasn’t a great situation to be in,” said Philip.

They then opened windows around the house, as SGN advise, but found it allowed more of the smell in.

Worried about how the odour could affect their daughter, Philip and Natalie chose to stay at a relative’s house in Upton with their two labradors.

Philip returned to the house on Tuesday morning and found ‘everything back to normal’.

Ward councillor for Creekmoor, Judes Butt, said there was a ‘definite pong’ in the area and she had received ‘lots of complaints’ from worried residents.

An hour after contacting SGN, three teams of engineers did thorough checks and again confirmed there were no gas leaks but there was a smell of sulphur.

“We've had various suggestions it could be the lakes with the frozen being warm and then cold, we don't know, but it's very much an environmental issue and down to the council to investigate,” said Cllr Butt.

The Echo contacted BCP Council about the issue, who said the environmental health team had not received any reports of the incident.

Waseem Hanif, a spokesperson for SGN, said: “We’ve had a number of calls regarding a smell in the air in the Petersham Road area of Poole over the past couple of days.

“Our engineers carried out safety checks and there were no gas readings in the area.

“However we would always recommend that anyone who can smell gas should call the National Gas Emergency Number on 0800 111 999.”