Shropshire homes and schools struggle amid power cuts

Hundreds of homes in Shropshire remain without power despite 1,100 engineers working day and night, a power company has said.

About 25,000 homes were cut off following Wednesday's storm when trees brought down power lines. At least 14 schools were also affected.

Scottish Power said "a few hundred" customers remained affected.

Western Power said it had reconnected all customers on the border of Staffordshire and Shropshire by noon.

Guy Jefferson, from Scottish Power, said: "With 140,000 customers off supply 36 hours ago, we've got 90% of those customers back on and we're working very hard to get everybody back on as quickly as possible."

He said there had been more than 900 separate problems caused by the weather, some of which involved "multiple damages".

'Total confidence'

Avril Sanders-Royal, who lives in Ruyton XI Towns, has been using a local swimming pool to have showers since her electricity was cut off.

Flood barriers will remain in place in Ironbridge as further rain is forecast

"We've got the log burner so we put a pan of water on that and keep filling flasks so we've got some hot water," she said.

In Ironbridge, the Wharfage and Church Hill are still closed to traffic as flood defences remain up.

Keith Hickin, who runs a gift shop on the Wharfage, said: "As far as the barriers are concerned, we've been delighted the way it's worked out, we haven't had any water on the premises at all and we've got total confidence in the guys working on them."

He said losing money through lack of customers was preferable to suffering from flooding.

The National Trust property Attingham Park has had to close its grounds and cancel weekend events because high winds have made trees unstable.

Crews took two hours to secure a lorry and rescue a driver near Attingham Park

On Thursday a lorry was trapped by a falling tree near the estate and its driver had to be rescued by fire crews.

Fiona Holman, from the National Trust, said it was hoped half-term events could start on Monday.

The Met Office has issued a yellow warning for rain on Friday, adding: "With very wet ground conditions... and following repeated heavy rainfall events earlier in the week, the public should be aware of the potential for further flooding in places."

The rain is expected to clear early on Saturday.