CITY centre residents were evacuated to the Town Hall after a fire broke out at businesses on Grosvenor Street.

The evacuation was ordered when fire crews became worried the flames may get into the gas main.

Those who were asked to leave their homes took shelter either at the Town Hall or at the Rossette day and night centre where tea, coffee and blankets were handed out by council workers.

Deputy chief executive of Chester City Council Chris Hardy said: 'We have an emergency plan in place in the city for when things of this nature happen.

'We have people on a rota system who can be called out to incidents. We were able to open the Town Hall within 15 minutes of receiving the call.

'Chester and District Housing Trust were also on standby in case the fire did spread to residential properties and people needed re-housing. In the end this was not necessary.

'People were allowed to go back to their homes by

4.20am.'

The fire started at Endsleigh Insurance at 11pm on Monday and fire crews finally left the scene at 5pm the next day.

In total 14 fire appliances from Cheshire, Wirral, Warrington and Wrexham attended the incident.

Fortunately there were no injuries to people though the fire brigade was forced to withdraw at one point for fear of electrocution and backdraft.

Andy Spencer of Greenwatch said: 'There was a lot of combustible material in the shops affected and at one point we were worried about backdraft and so had to send in ground monitors to assess the risk.

'The construction of the building, with its concrete ceilings, was one of the factors that stopped the fire from spreading to the offices above and houses nearby.'

Endsleigh Insurance and Jessops were both badly damaged and are operating out of their other Chester branches.

The cause of the fire has yet to be determined and an investigation is under way.

A spokesman for Jessops said: 'We understand the fire was not in our store but regrettably our premises have been extensively damaged.

'While we make every effort to care for our customers' photographs during processing, we are unable to protect against unforeseen incidents of this nature. As such, it is likely that some customers' photographs will, regrettably, have been destroyed by the fire.

'Any customers who have queries regarding orders for photographs or hardware at our Grosvenor Street store are invited to visit our store on Werburgh Street in Chester, to e-mail chester@jessops.com, or to call 0845 548 7076.'