Engineers in struggle to restore power

ENGINEERS were still trying to return power to around 100 homes across Edinburgh and the Lothians overnight.

ScottishPower has brought in 850 engineers to work across the central and southern Scotland region to try to get the electricity back on following Tuesday’s storm, but homes in Ratho, Lasswade, Haddington and East Linton were still without power yesterday.

Affected customers were being put up in hotels or having their meals reimbursed. One Ratho family said they were put up in the Marriott Dalmahoy Hotel on Thursday night after being without power since 8.30am on Tuesday.

Fiona Melling, who has two children aged just one and two, said the temperature in her home was down to 7.5C yesterday and she and her husband could not stay in the house with such young children.

She said: “Every day since Tuesday they told us the power would be back on again the following day.”

A spokesman for ScottishPower said: “The storm on Tuesday was the worst that we have seen in about 15 years.

“We sincerely apologise for the inconvenience and are doing everything we can.”