Burst pipes leave homes without water

Yorkshire Water admitted a "small minority" of customers who had reported cracked pipes had lost their water supply, although it was unable to confirm how many.

A company spokesman said: "With such a large volume of bursts occurring over a short period of time we have to prioritise them in order to ensure we address the most serious and urgent ones first, particularly those where water supply has been disrupted.

"However, we would like to reassure customers we're doing our best to get to smaller bursts too, and that we're working flat out to respond to these as quickly as possible."

National Grid said UK gas demand was expected to continue to hit record levels over the weekend.