A weekly newspaper team became part of the news this week when their offices were evacuated in a contamination scare just hours before their deadline.

The Skegness Standard offices, along with other shops and commercial premises in the town centre, were evacuated and sealed off after shoppers reported feeling unwell and experiencing breathing difficulties.

Editor John Cowpe said: “We had no idea how long the emergency would last – or whether we would be able to get back to our computers to meet the deadlines.”

At first emergency crews thought there had been a gas leak, but it was later suggested a contaminant had entered the air conditioning system at the Hildreds shopping centre, where the Standard is a tenant.

Soon the town centre was buzzing with police, firefighters and ambulance crews.

Premises within a 400-yard radius of the Hildreds Centre were closed until just before 6pm – two hours after deadline.

Chief reporter James Hardaker’s home became ‘base camp’ for the rest of the afternoon, with the team e-mailing copy and pictures of the incident direct to the sub-editors at the company’s Louth office.

The editor stayed as close to the scene of the emergency as he could, keeping his team supplied by telephone with up-to-the-minute updates about the situation as it unfolded.

Last-minute changes were made to the paper, and it managed to feature the story as its front page lead.

Creative re-shuffling by the sub-editing team meant not a single news item had to be dropped from Wednesday’s edition.

John said: “Everyone rallied round extremely well. The end result was a good front page – and thankfully no staff coming to any harm.”