ABSTRACT
The tragic events at Putney and Rutherglen in 1985 had a profound influence on the attitude of the gas industry's new regulator, the Health and Safety Commission (HSE). During the 1960s there had been a series of explosions under the streets of various British towns caused by gas leaking from the Victorian gas mains laid a century or more earlier. On 22 December 1999 a gas explosion destroyed a bungalow at Larkhall, Lanarkshire, killing its four inhabitants two parents and their two young children. The ICL companies ICL Plastics Ltd and ICL Tech Ltd also known as Stock line had used Grove Park Mills in Maryhill, Glasgow, since 1968 to manufacture plastic products. The explosion was caused by a leak of liquefied petroleum gas (LPG), propane, which was kept in a storage tank outside in the yard to supply gas ovens used in the manufacturing processes.
