There are concerns for the elderly and vulnerable
William Telford Senior Reporter and Business Specialist
13:16, 04 Jan 2026
Kingsbridge town centre(Image: Getty)
The scale of the gas outage which has hit Devon has been revealed – with around 4,600 properties affected.
The supply was cut off to homes and businesses yesterday when the gas main was damaged during work by a “third party” in a field at Belle Hill, near Kingsbridge.
It cut off gas to the South Hams settlements of Kingsbridge, Malborough and Salcombe and Wales and West Utilities engineers worked through the night to fix the pipeline in what was described as a “very challenging” operation.
Today, the company has been able to reveal how widespread the outage has been. And although the main is mended, engineers need to visit all those properties twice to turn off and then turn back on the gas supply safely.
Wales and West Utilities hopes to be able to do this today but will be issuing an update later today on how the work is going.
A company spokesperson said: “I can say that we are in the process of visiting each property and turning everyone off and then back onto gas.”
The spokesperson explained that as part of the process to restore supplies, engineers will need to visit every property with a gas supply and switch off the supply at the control valve, located near the meter.
Once this has been completed, they will then be in a position to begin returning gas supplies to properties, but for this to be done safely, they will need to visit each property again to ensure the gas is turned back on safely.
The spokesperson said: “It will help speed up the process for restoring the gas if people can make every effort to be in today when our engineers call.
“We have also drafted in additional engineers from elsewhere across our network to support with this work.
“We will visit each property as quickly as we can, but we ask people to please remain patient and bear with us as we try to get to everyone as quickly as we can.
“If for whatever reason you are not in when we call, we will leave a card with information on how to contact us to have your gas supply returned safely.
‘All our engineers will have their ID badges with them and will be happy for you to verify their identification by calling our ID verification line on 0800 3160478.
“We continue to appreciate everyone’s patience as we work to restore supplies.”
The company said that if at any point anyone smells gas, they should call the National Gas Emergency line on 0800 111999.