A VILLAGE chippy in the North-East is getting back to normal after working flat out to feed hundreds of families left without gas.

Nearly 800 homes in Delves Lane, Consett, County Durham, were left without part of their fuel supply for around a week after water from a burst main got into the system.

Northern Gas Network set up an incident room at Delves Lane Village Hall with engineers working to restore the supply as soon as possible.

They offered food vouchers to customers for a catering van outside the hall and paid for free fish and chips from the local takeaway.

The Golden Fish Inn opened on the Sunday for the first time in its history with staff working long days to cater for demand.

Vinny Sandhu, 28, who owns the chip shop with his family, said: “It is great the community has all pulled together to cope with this situation.

“It has been very good for business, don’t me wrong, but if someone said it was going to happen again next week I do not think I would be to cope. I have not had time to do anything else.”

Northern Gas Networks extracted about 16,500 litres of water from the gas mains system and repaired the pipe.

Gas was restored to all affected properties on Thursday, November 19.

NGN has confirmed customers affected by the loss of gas supply will be entitled to compensation.

The company said payment is calculated automatically and will be passed on to customers through their gas suppliers.

John Richardson, customer operations area manager at Northern Gas Networks said: “The safety of our customers is always our number one priority and our engineers worked around the clock to restore supplies as quickly as possible.

“We provided hot food and showing facilities as well as alternative accommodation for vulnerable customers while we worked to repair the pipe and get the gas back on.

“We’re really grateful for all of the support that we received from the local community and would like to thank everyone in Consett for their patience while we worked to restore gas supplies.”

Northern Gas Networks (NGN) will continue to have a presence in Consett while engineers carry out work to replace 3.5km of ageing metal gas mains on Castledene Road, Greencroft Road, Lumley Drive, Brierdale, Greenways, Meadow View, Douai Drive and College View, with modern plastic pipes.

The work, which was originally planned to take place in 2016, is expected to be complete by Tuesday December 22.