ENGINEERS continued to battle to restore electricity supplies to homes across the North-East and North Yorkshire last night.

Supplies were expected to be restored completely by midnight after New Year's Eve blizzards and gales left 51,000 homes without electric for up to 48 hours.

Yesterday morning, more than 1,600 households were without electricity - 700 in North Yorkshire, 870 across Cleveland, 97 in County Durham and 11 in Northumberland. Engineers were working around the clock to restore supplies, with extra staff drafted in from other electricity providers across the country to repair faults as quickly as possible.

By 4pm yesterday, only 750 households continued to be without power, the majority of them in North Yorkshire in an area stretching from Whitby to Scotch Corner, and down to Thirsk, with a few others in Cleveland. It was expected they would be reconnected by this morning at the latest.

An spokeswoman for power supplier NEDL said the reason it was taking so long to restore power was because of the bad weather and the sheer volume of faults.

He said: "If it had been powdered snow it would not have been a problem.

"But it was the type of snow that stuck to the cables and built up until it brought the conductors down.

"This has meant we have had to re-string whole sections of overhead lines, completely replacing them all over the region.

"Our staff have been working in shifts around the clock and they will not stop until power is restored."

Most of the snow across the region had melted yesterday, although Fylingdales, on the North York Moors, still had 10cm in the morning.

Weather forecasters say it will be cloudy today with patchy light rain and possible brighter spells later in the day.

Tomorrow it will be dry and bright to start with, becoming cloudier in the afternoon, with rain coming in from the west.