Many frustrated residents in Steeton were forced to endure a second day without gas as engineers battled to restore supplies after high winds damaged supply equipment.

Around 1,600 properties were left without gas on Tuesday morning when the roof was blown off a kiosk in Thornhill Road and the device inside, known as a gas governor, was damaged.

The system automatically shut down to stop gas escaping.

Northern Gas Networks said reconnecting customers would be “time-consuming” because engineers were having to visit every affected property to carry out important safety checks before turning the gas supply back on.

They started the painstaking process by visiting vulnerable customers first before moving throughout the rest of the village.

Yesterday, a spokesman for the gas company said “lots of extra engineers” were in the area “working as quickly and as hard as they can” to reconnect supplies, but admitted it was “unlikely” all properties would be reconnected by this morning.