A GAS pipe has been leaking in a field on the edge of Malvern for over a week with nothing being done, a local resident said this week.

Mike Soley, a Malvern Hills councillor, fears that if the problem is not fixed, someone lighting a cigarette near the leak off Lower Howsell Road could cause it to ignite.

He said: "I used to work for the gas board and I know there is a medium to high pressure gas pipe crossing the field from the old town gas works next to the railway line, towards Newland.

"You can smell the gas as you go into the field and if you go to where the pipe is, you can see the gas bubbling up through the water lying in the field.

"I reported it a week ago, and someone's come out and put a No Smoking sign in the road and a sign with an emergency number to call, but something needs to be done.

"If kids went into the field to have a smoke, it could set the gas alight. It wouldn't be an explosion, because it's coming out under high pressure, but it would be a burning flare, like the flares you see at oil wells. Someone could get hurt."

National Grid spokesman Jane Taylor confirmed that the leak had been first reported on Thursday March 26, but said that it posed no danger.

She said: "We investigated the same day and determined that the medium-pressure pipe had a join than was leaking and that is allowing the gas to escape.

"The field was rather wet though and it was thought that if we tried to move our equipment on to the field it would get bogged down.

"We have been going back each day to check the leak, and it's not getting any worse. On Wednesday and Thursday, we were doing preparatory work on the site and we'll be going in first thing next week to get it repaired."

She also said that worried about the gas igniting were not warranted. She said: "The leak is in an open field and the gas dissipates very quickly into the air, so there is no danger of it catching fire."