Weather warning issued for Northumberland

Snow and strong winds are set to batter Northumberland again.
A yellow weather warning for snow and wind has been issued for Northumberland.A yellow weather warning for snow and wind has been issued for Northumberland.
A yellow weather warning for snow and wind has been issued for Northumberland.

The Met Office has issued a yellow weather warning for the North East, just nine days after Storm Arwen wreaked havoc across the county.

Thousands of households are still without power following last weekend’s wild weather, and rain yesterday is hampering attempts to reconnect power lines.

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In a visit to the North East, Energy Secretary Kwasi Kwarteng said it was "totally unacceptable" that thousands remained without power, after Labour claimed the government would have taken the problem more seriously if the South East had been affected.

Mr Kwarteng said: "I feel that we've engaged with this problem right from the start of the week.

"We have got 99.5% of the people who were affected back on the power supply. For the 0.5%, that's no solace at all, but it's wrong to say nothing has been done."

Mr Kwarteng added that a review would be carried out and if energy firms were found to have failed to invest in infrastructure, then "there could be enforcement action".

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The Met Office said today there was a chance of power outages, and a "slight chance" rural communities could be cut off during bad weather tomorrow and Tuesday.

Heavy rainfall in Northumberland yesterday meant hundreds of properties which had had power restored, were again without supply.

Rothbury county councillor Steven Bridgett told Sky News earlier that about 150 properties in the area were without power on Saturday, but the number had soared again after "significant rainfall and wind" overnight.

"That pretty much wiped out all of the good work that had been achieved over the last three or four days," he said.

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"We're now back up to about 600 properties that are still without power.

"We've got significant surface water flooding happening in this area as well. Some of the roads are starting to flood.

"We've pretty much had constant rainfall now for 12 to 14 hours.”

The yellow warning is in place for Tuesday, December 7, from 11am and between 2cm and 5cm of snow are expected throughout the area covered by the warning.

The Met Office added: "Heavy snow is expected across northern England and Scotland, bringing likely travel disruption, especially over higher routes.”