HUNDREDS of households in York and North and East Yorkshire have suffered power cuts in the wake of the recent big freeze - with some left without electricity for more than 30 hours.

Northern Powergrid said faults developed in overhead cables yesterday as the thaw began after the snow and ice of last week, caused by the 'Beast from the East' cold spell of weather.

A spokeswoman said 147 customers in villages to the east of York, such as Full Sutton, Scrayingham, Bugthorpe and Skirpenbeck, lost their power supplies at 3.30am yesterday, and 133 were still without electricity by this morning.

She said staff worked hard to restore power as quickly as possible, with engineers sent out on patrol to locate faults and a helicopter called in to assist.

More faults were uncovered as the work progressed and the last remaining 51 customers got their power back by 3.15pm today. "We’re sorry for the disruption to customers supplies," she added.

She said another power cut yesterday afternoon affected 402 properties in neighbourhoods on the eastern side of York, such as Derwenthorpe, and also the village of Holtby.The cut was reported at 3.15pm and power was restored to all customers by 7.37pm on Sunday.

Again the disruption was caused by problems with overhead cables, which may have been related to the recent bitterly cold weather and then the thaw setting in.