Evacuated Doncaster bomb scare residents told: "We've found something that might go bang"

Police rushed from door to door on Harewood Road, Town Moor, after what was thought to be an old mortar shell was found.

Residents told of their shock at the incident which saw their street sealed off on Tuesday.

One resident said she had been out at the time, but received a call around 11.30am from a neighbour to tell her all the houses had been evacuated. She said it was around 3pm before she was allowed back into her property.

“I thought it was a joke at first,” she said. “Nothing ever happens like that round here.”

Another resident said police had been in the area from around 8.30am, and the previous day she had seen a fire engine on the street.

“The neighbours have said it was about an old mortar shell,” said resident Lesley Neale.

“When the police asked us to get out, they just said something had been found. We were not sure what, but they were in a rush to get eveyone out, knocking on all the doors. One of my neighbours asked what it was, and they told him ‘something that might go bang’.”

Both ends of the street were cordoned off with police tape, and police cars were ‘all over the place’.

“We ended up going to Lakeside for a few hours,” said Lesley. “We didn’t really have anywhere else to go. It was a shock. We came back at about 2.30pm and they were still there, with the army’s bomb disposal unit still outside a house.

“We were alarmed when they said it was something that could go bang. There are a lot of elderly people on the street who can’t get about very easily.

“The police were just doing their job – they didn’t know what was going to happen.

After the army’s bomb disposal squad had been out to the street and taken a look at the shell, they said it was not active. Police said no one was arrested over the incident.