9am Briefing: Pregnant woman saved from burning block of flats

PREGNANT woman has been rescued and two other people were forced to leap from the second floor after a blaze engulfed a block of flats in the early hours of this morning.

Fire crews raced to Murrayburn Green in Wester Hailes after the fire broke out in a second-floor flat of the block at 2am.

Control centre personnel urged the couple, aged 19 and 23, to wait until crews arrived, but they were forced to leap from a rear window due to the ferocity of the blaze, fracturing bones. Smoke from the fire then spread to the top floor of the block, trapping the 24-year-old pregnant woman inside.

She was later treated for smoke inhalation.

• PORTAKABIN was today named as the only creditor to get cash from the city council after the collapse of the company which organised the troubled Gathering event.

Small companies in Edinburgh who were owed thousands of pounds by organisers of the loss-making two-day clan event in Holyrood Park in 2009 were refused payment, but council bosses handed 5647 to Portakabin - which has a turnover of over 150m - for temporary buildings.

Martin Hunt, whose city-based PR firm Tartan Silk is owed almost 8000, said: "Covering the costs of Portakabin in this way shows a lack of integrity on the part of Edinburgh City Council. It also shows a lack of concern for the businesses thatr pay rates in Edinburgh and contribute to the economy of the city."

The council denied it had caved in to Portakabin because of the size of the firm.

• THE Government has halted a 6 billion procurement programme for search and rescue helicopters, after the preferred bidder admitted it had had access to commercially sensitive information.

Ministry of Defence police are now investigating how the information came to be in the possession of CHC Helicopter, a member of the Soteria consortium.

The deal was supposed to replace the RAF's Sea King fleet, but Transport Secretary Philip Hammond said in a statement to Parliament, also released to the London Stock Exchange: "The Government has sufficient information to enable it to conclude that the irregularities that have been identified were such that that it would not be appropriate to proceed with either the preferred bid or with the current procurement process.

"The Department for Transport and the Ministry of Defence will now consider the potential procurement options to meet future requirements for search and rescue helicopters in the United Kingdom, including options to maintain continuity of search and rescue helicopter cover until new longer term arrangements can be put in place."