A 58-year-old man died after a petrol station canopy fell and hit him as he refuelled during last week’s storms.

The incident happened at a Sainsbury’s forecourt in Bamber Bridge, Preston, Lancashire, on Thursday (January 19).

Signage installation company Xmo Strata reported extensive damage at petrol stations across the UK during the recent bad weather, with emergency teams having to work round-the-clock to make sites safe.

Company boss Steve Martin has called for design changes and improvements to make signs less vulnerable to wind damage.

He said: “Signs are like big sails in high wind – you can’t hold them or stop them blowing around, and some of them are extremely heavy. Our teams are using a great deal of cool headedness and experience to wrestle them down in some cases, but we really need to think about how to stop this happening in the first place.”