PUTTING people up overnight in hotels amid a Stourbridge bomb scare cost more than £600, the council has confirmed.

Dudley Council had to shell out £621 on temporary accommodation for a number of people who had to be evacuated from their homes after a suspicious package was found in Danford Close, off Hagley Road, last Saturday (July 16).

Councillor Rachel Harris, the authority’s cabinet member for health and wellbeing, said many families were able to find alternative overnight arrangements but the council had a “duty to make sure that those who were not able to go back home, some of whom were very frail and elderly, were properly looked after overnight”.

She said the council made a number of enquiries to hotels and could only find one, the 4* Copthorne Hotel at Brierley Hill, with availability for the nine rooms needed - at a cost of £69 each.

But she stressed: “Events like this are under immense scrutiny in the current climate and it is important we put people’s safety before anything else.”

Around 100 people were evacuated from their homes and the council set up a temporary rest centre at Redhill School after a box containing a suspect device put Stourbridge police on alert at 12.42pm.

Officers put a 100m cordon in place, which left the main Hagley Road closed, while bomb disposal specialists worked at the scene.

But the device was later confirmed as “non-explosive” and the cordon was lifted at 1.30am on Sunday morning.

A 25-year-old Stourbridge man was arrested in Staffordshire in connection with the incident - but he has since been released on police bail “with strict conditions” until August 13 while enquiries continue.