Stannington: Up to 2,000 homes still without gas after pipes flooded

Up to 2,000 properties in Sheffield are now believed to have lost their gas supplies after water from a burst pipe leaked into the gas main.

Residents in Stannington were left without heating or cooking facilities after the incident late on Friday.

It was initially thought that about 1,000 homes had been affected.

Yorkshire Water said the leak had since been fixed, while Cadent Gas said engineers remained on site draining water from the system.

In a statement, Cadent said so far it had pumped more than 400,000 litres of water out of the gas network and 100 engineers remained at work in Stannington.

There were "a mixture of properties off gas and on gas and with poor pressures", the firm said.

A Cadent spokesperson said: "We are working hard to get as many properties as possible back on, but it could be a few more days for the majority of properties."

While the situation was "challenging", there was currently a risk of the electricity network being overloaded due to the number of "large appliances" being used, the spokesperson added.

"Northern Powergrid are continuing to monitor the load on the network and have asked that any heaters that are not required are switched off."

The Cadent spokesperson asked residents to try to use electricity only when they "really need it" and not to "use too many items all at the same time".

Some Stannington residents told BBC Radio Sheffield they had experienced issues with the electricity supply on Monday.

Ollie Paton said: "I came home from work and the electricity was off. It came back on, then went off again. It's freezing. You can see your own breath in the candlelight."

Meanwhile, Alan Walker, from The Village Store in Stannington, said: "People are expecting the gas to be put back on any time. In reality I think this is going to go on for a long time.

"And with the cold weather, it's warmer to stay outside than it is to stay in the house."

Mr Walker said he feared there would be further issues once the water had been removed from the system.

"I've had customers in here saying they're turning their gas hobs on and there's water coming out," he said.

Penny Baker, Liberal Democrat councillor for Stannington, praised residents for their community spirit.

She said: "This time of year in these temperatures it's awful, but people are remarkable.

"They're going out there and helping their neighbours and using social media a lot to communicate with each other."

Yorkshire Water has apologised for the impact of the water main burst, saying it "understood how difficult it was for those affected".

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