Strong winds hit Britain again yesterday, bringing trees crashing down on to roads and power lines, disrupting travel and causing millions of pounds worth of damage.

A woman and a 10-year-old boy were taken to hospital after a tree fell on their car outside a primary school in Hertfordshire.

And two other people were injured when damaged overhead cable equipment smash­e­d a window on a train near Ely in Cambridgeshire. All four sustained minor injuries.

A lorry driver was also taken to hospital when an HGV overturned on the A1 at Leeming in North Yorkshire. Meanwhile, four people were trapped in a house in Chingford, east London, when a tree crashed down in front of it.

Schools and roads were closed in other parts of the country and thousands of homes suffered power cuts after cables were brought down.

Wind speeds reached 180kph overnight at Great Dun Fell in the Pennines – the highest wind speed recorded this week.

And Greater Manchester saw gusts of up to 114mph, which was the top speed recorded during the day.

The Association of British Insurers estimated the damage caused since Monday to be worth tens of millions of pounds.

Storms earlier this week claimed two lives – father-of-three Christopher Hayes, 51, who was killed when a tree crushed his parked van in Tunbridge Wells, Kent, and a crew member on board a tanker that was hit by a large wave off the coast of the south Devon/ Cornwall border.

In North Yorkshire, several lorries were blown over in high winds and North Yorkshire Fire Service was called out to localised flood­ing at homes in the Skipton area.

Crews were also called to two incidents of cars trapped in flood water.

Norfolk County Council said it dealt with 200 incidents on the county’s roads over­night as gales and rain brought trees, branches and a power line down, and blew debris on to roads and pavements. Two women had to be cut free from acar when a large tree fell on it in Eagles­­cliffe, Teesside.

And motorists suffered delays of up to two hours on the M25 because of the closure of the Dartford Crossing’s QEII Bridge for much of the day.

The high winds also led to a series of disruptions to rush-hour train services across the country, with trees on the line causing delays in a number of areas and overhead line problems causing further disruption.

A spokesman for the Association of Train Operating Companies said: “Hundreds of fallen trees and debris, including ripped-off roofs and children’s trampolines, have been removed from tracks and scores of damaged overhead power lines have been repaired across the country by Network Rail engineers.”

Sea travel was affected too, with P&O Ferries to Calais and DFDS Seaways to Dunkirk subject to delays due to adverse weather conditions in the channel.

Around 1,000 homes in the Salisbury area of Wiltshire were without electricity during the morning after power cables came down due to strong winds, Southern Electric said.

Some 10,000 Western Power Distribution customers were temporarily without power in the East Midlands while 6,000 customers were cut off in the West Midlands, mainly in Stoke and Staffordshire. The Met Office said squally conditions had caused turbulent air and pockets of intense showers around the country.

MeteoGroup, the weather division of the Press Association, said parts of northern England, Scotland and the north of Wales had seen the windiest weather although most of the country was hit to a greater or lesser degree.

There was also showery weather in many areas, with 26mm of rainfall in Wales between 6 p.m. on Thursday and 6 a.m. yesterday.

Temperatures this week have reached -13˚C around twice the average for this time of year, the Met Office said.

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