Source of mystery Sunderland siren solved as company in Washington apologises to Wearsiders

Brentagg UK Ltd is part of a German multinational firm, whose main headquarters are in Sunderland’s twin city of Essen in western Germany.

In the early hours of Saturday, July 15 an alarm was set off at its premises on Turbine Way, due to an electronic fault.

Unfortunately it continued to sound for hours before it finally fell silent, leaving the neighbours annoyed and bleary eyed when they got up.

The siren could be heard from a considerable radius. One resident who lives on Sulgrave Road in Washington, over a mile away, said that sleep was made impossible for him and his neighbours by the noise.

Brentagg told the Sunderland Echo: “The siren alarm that occurred in the early hours of Saturday, July 15th was due to an electrical fault in a computer system. Our colleagues had to manually switch off the system, which regrettably took quite long.

“We would like to sincerely apologise to local residents who were disturbed, and thank those who alerted local authorities or voiced their concern to us via email directly.

“At Brenntag we put safety first. This is the first incident we have had in over five years at this site, as we test our siren alarm system weekly, and we are reviewing our procedures to continuously improve here.”

There has been no reports of any further problems with the Brenntag alarm.