A COUNCIL has admitted liability for a massive gas explosion that left a tenant with appalling injuries.

On the day a trial was due to start at Manchester County Court, seven years after the blast, which destroyed a block of flats in Kingsley Road, Walkden, Salford Council admitted it was liable.

The council now faces paying substantial damages to tenant James Bleakley, who suffered 42 per cent burns in the explosion.

A judge has ordered that his legal costs, and that of a contractor, should also be paid by the council. The final legal bill could be more than £100,000.

The explosion, caused by a gas leak from a copper pipe, happened in the early hours of November 9, 2000, after Mr Bleakley lit a cigarette. He spent the next three months in hospital, where he had skin grafts to his legs and physiotherapy to help him walk again.

The amount the council will pay Mr Bleakley, and two other tenants who suffered shock and damage to their homes, will be decided later this year.

Salford Council had initially denied liability for the explosion, claiming it had entrusted maintenance of the gas supply to a contractor.

But at Manchester County Court, Hywel Jenkins, counsel for Mr Bleakley, said that the council owed him a duty of care under gas safety regulations.

Mr Bleakley, who now lives in Bolton, said: "I am glad this is all over. It is disgusting that it has taken so long.

"I remember waking up to a huge orange ball of flames and seeing stars above me - the wall of the bedroom next to mine had been blown down.

"I suffered damage to a lung and it was touch and go whether I would survive.

"I had only been in the flat for three months, but I had reported that the heating system was not working three times."

Bob Osbourne, Salford Council's deputy director of housing and planning, said: "The objective of the city council is to ensure we provide good quality housing that is well maintained, and we have accepted that in this instance we failed to ensure that."