Emergency services had to be called to Hazlegrove Services in Yeovil to deal with storm damage to the canopy.

Clive Sheppard, director of Chartman the Top 50 Indie which owns the site, said staff alerted him to a piece of metal that was flapping loose on top of the canopy.

He said: “It looked to be presenting a considerable danger and there was no answer from signage companies so I decided to call the fire brigade.

“They were fantastic. They arrived very promptly and were very professional. They closed down the site, carried out a risk assessment, and sent two fire fighters up to detach the metal and bring it down. We were able to reopen within 20-30 minutes.”

Sheppard said the signage companies appeared to have a backlog of work and he was still waiting for them to fix the canopy and also replace the ‘O’ which was blown out of the Esso sign.

Chartman is based in the West Country, which has seen some of the most severe weather in the recent storms, and its Winning Post site outside Exeter has also been affected.

It suffered a power cut one evening, meaning that a tanker that arrived while the power was off could not offload its fuel. Power was eventually restored at 4.30pm the following day.

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