Hundreds still without power after Storm Isha

Almost 600 homes are still without power in parts of the north-east of England following Storm Isha.

Northern Powergrid, which is responsible for delivering electricity in the region, said it hoped to have supplies restored as soon as possible before Storm Jocelyn hits the UK later.

The firm has been sending out support vehicles to affected homes to hand out hot meals and drinks, and to give people the chance to charge their mobile phones.

Andy Bilclough, director of field operations, told BBC Radio Newcastle that power had been restored to the vast majority of premises which suffered outages when the storm hit on Sunday.

The Met Office issued a yellow wind warning on Tuesday for large parts of the UK, including the North East.

Mr Bilclough said 56,000 customers had their power supplies affected by Storm Isha, with Northumberland "hit the hardest".

He said the company had been in "storm response mode" since the end of last week.

“We will stay in that mode until we see what happens with Storm Jocelyn tonight,” he said.

He added there was a “small risk” that Storm Jocelyn could affect Northern Powergrid's ability to restore power to the 575 properties still affected by the previous storm.

But he noted that current forecasts suggest that winds will not pick up until Tuesday afternoon, and engineers should be able to restore power beforehand.

“At the minute, our plan is we’ll get all of those customers back today so that they’ve got some power ahead of the next storm coming,” he said.

Scottish Power said 125 customers in the Coldstream area, which is in Scotland just over the Northumberland border, are still without power due to Storm Isha.

A spokesperson said it was working on site to replace broken poles and to repair grounded conductors.

“We have brought in additional resources to help achieve this as safely and quickly as possible as we face worsening conditions from Storm Jocelyn later today,” they said.

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