Wigan gets off lightly as Storm Franklin lashes the North West

Minor structural damage and the occasional uprooted tree were the only casualties of this latest of three bad weather systems to hit the borough in a week.

A lorry crash and subsequent fire on the M6 at Wigan was blamed on high winds and for a period train operator Northern suspended all of its services due to a number of incidents on the tracks.

All four of Wigan's fire stations said they had had very little to do weather-wise as the winds began to abate on the late morning of Monday February 21.

The technical rescue unit, which has been based at Leigh fire station for the past eight years, was kept busy attending reporters of structural damage but these were in areas outside of Wigan: namely Sale and Radcliffe.

The only notification Wigan Council made in connection with the storm concerned keeping the bird hides at Pennington Flash Country Park closed for the rest of the day.

Other parts of the region did see buildings suffering structural damage and areas flooded following sudden downpours

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