COLNE VALLEY MP Kali Mountford is demanding a full investigation into the gas crisis at Marsden.

She also wants an increase in the amount of compensation for people hit by the gas leak.

And, despite praising the response of the gas engineers, she has criticised the lack of information that had been distributed.

Ms Mountford toured Marsden yesterday and said: "I'm here to find out whether or not the response has been adequate.

"One of the issues is how it happened and whether they could have done anything sooner and I want them to investigate that properly."

She said she smelled gas around Chain Road, site of the leak, a couple of weeks ago while out walking in the area.

Ms Mountford also wants to see that residents and business owners are fairly compensated.

At present the home compensation stands at £30 for every 24 hour period without gas.

"£30 a day sounds OK but I'll be angling to round it up a bit more," said the MP.

She said she would be pushing for £90 or £100 in total.

She added that the gas company was being sympathetic towards her demands.

"Whether being sympathetic translates into what I'm asking for is another matter.

"For an incident as big as this there ought to be automatic payments."

As for the work being carried out by Northern Gas Networks she said: "The response is very good but it could still have been better.

"There's been a good response from lots of people and the gas services have tried very hard, but they could have done a lot better and need to learn from this."

She added: "Given the scale of it I think they're doing a grand job.

"The other thing is information. Why haven't they given people proper information?

"People coming into the Mechanics Hall still don't know when their elderly relatives are going to get any food."

Several residents, along with Ms Mountford, questioned why information hadn't been given out over loudspeakers on vans.

John O'Grady, communications director for Northern Gas Networks, said: "We have used loud hailer vans in the past and we found that the loud hailer van will go down the street and people will hear part of the message and not get the full message."

He said they had switched to letter dropping a few years ago.