Power cut hits 15,000 households in south-west England

Looe's lifeboat station was flooded on Tuesday night

About 15,000 households in south-west England have suffered power cuts because of high winds and stormy weather, engineers say.

Strong winds and heavy rain are spreading across the region once more.

Western Power Distribution said homes from Taunton in Somerset to Penzance in Cornwall were affected, with 10,000 in Cornwall alone experiencing outages.

It added that repair works were being "fully resourced" but bad weather was hampering their efforts.

Penzance, Redruth and Bodmin in Cornwall were particularly affected by outages, Western Power said.

Engineers were to work through the night on repairs, it added.

A flood warning was in place along the south Cornwall coast for high tide on Tuesday evening and Wednesday morning, the Environment Agency said.

The Met Office has issued a yellow alert for high winds in the South West from 15:00 GMT until 23:00 on Wednesday.

More than 65 reports of fallen trees requiring police to attend were received across Devon and Cornwall in an hour, officers said.

Fallen trees have been reported across Devon and Cornwall, including in Penzance

In Looe harbour water was described as swirling "like a cauldron" by a BBC cameraman and the town's lifeboat station flooded.

The Tamar Bridge between Plymouth in Devon and Saltash in Cornwall was closed to all traffic for a period after wind speeds went over 70mph, police said. It was later just closed to high-sided vehicles.

Cornwall Council's Silver Command asked drivers not to make unnecessary journeys.

It said it was dealing with a "high number of weather-related emergency call-outs".

"As well as reports of a number of flooded properties, we are also dealing with trees blocking roads, the shutting of the promenade in Penzance and power lines down."

Storms have caused more than £4m worth of damage across the county in a month, Cornwall Council has estimated.