A STREET CLEANER working in central Ross narrowly escaped injury in the early hours of Friday morning, when two slates fell into the road just feet away from him.

The slates, which are thought to have been worked loose by the high winds experienced in the Ross area the previous evening, fell from the roof of the Crown & Sceptre in Broad Street.

The cleaner was an employee of Amey, Herefordshire Council's contractor for 'street scene' and highways work. A spokesman for Amey confirmed the details of the incident in a conversation with the Ross Gazette's reporter on Tuesday.

Shortly after the incident, the highways contractor, which has the power to close roads and pavements in an emergency, cordoned off the pavement and part of the loading bay in front of the pub, as well as the alleyway alongside the building.

The cordon stayed in place for four days while repairs to the roof were carried out – which, inconveniently for the owners of the pub, meant no customers could enter the premises between Friday and Tuesday morning.

As the Gazette went to press, parts of the pavement were still inaccessible to the public, but the pub was back in business.

Thursday night's winds also caused damage to trees and property elsewhere in the Ross area, and deprived some local homes of electricity for seven hours.

In Wilton, a tree was blown into electricity cables, short-circuiting the power supply to 700 homes. Wilton resident Haydn Dix told the Gazette he saw "quite a flash" come from a nearby transformer shortly after 10pm, at which point all the lights went out. Ten minutes later, he heard "a loud buzzing" from the transformer, but the power stayed off.

A spokesman for Central Networks, the E.ON UK subsidiary that maintains power cables in the local area, said engineers were quickly sent out to trim the damaged tree, and power was restored to around 300 homes just 15 minutes after the break in supply.

Another 180 homes had to wait until 1.40am to be reconnected, and the final 215 houses were reconnected at 5am.