Firefighters had a grim Friday night - Saturday morning across Slough, Langley and the Royal Borough - as home after home suffered flooding caused by burst pipes.

The flooding has been caused as frozen pipes begin to thaw out, causing large volumes of water to burst them.

Windsor Racecourse was affected as all floors on one building in the Paddock area were flooded and firefighters called out at 7am Saturday were on the scene for about an hour.

A spokesman for Slough firefighters said the team had been called out overnight to at least 10 homes across a large area.

He said people had to be evacuated so that the electrics and gas in the house could be isolated.

In some cases upstairs flooding has caused chaos through different storeys, although no-one is understood to have suffered injury.

A spokeman for Langley fire station said he had lost count of the number of call-outs.

The problem eased during Saturday as the thaw concluded. But firefighters were forced to break into some properties after tanks burst inside, causing flooding and necessitating more emergency action to isolate gas and electricity sources.