Man arrested as flats evacuated

14 November 2018, 06:06 | Updated: 14 November 2018, 06:08

A man's been arrested after the evacuation of a block of flats in North Manchester.

Just after 12:15pm earlier on Tuesday, officers were called to Hamerton Road to reports that threatening phone calls had been made to a third party.

On arrival police discovered a quantity of an unknown substance at a property on the street and a cordon was quickly established.

An assessment of the substance is currently being carried out by emergency services and Roach Court flats have been evacuated as a precautionary measure.

A man has been arrested on suspicion of making malicious communications and an offence under Section 2 of the Explosives Act. He remains in custody for questioning.

There is currently no information to suggest the incident is terrorism related.

Superintendent Chris Allsop, of Greater Manchester Police, said: “We are continuing to carry out enquiries on Hamerton Road this evening after officers responding to reports of threatening behaviour earlier today found a quantity of a suspicious substance.

“At this stage it is unknown exactly what this substance is and as such we have specialist officers from GMP and GMFRS carrying out assessments at the scene.

“Our number one priority is public safety so we made the decision to evacuate Roach Court flats as a precaution while these assessments are carried out and we are working with partner agencies to ensure that residents have somewhere to go.

“I appreciate seeing an incident such as this will cause concern to the public but I want to stress that there is nothing at this stage to suggest that this incident is terrorism related.”