Whitby: Century and a half of resort history dismantled brick by brick

Officials have said that the work will be carried out in a “steady, step by step approach” because of the instability of the site but by yesterday afternoon workers, using a cherry picker to remove bricks from the site, had taken down the roofs of two properties on Aelfleda Terrace.

The row of terrace homes in Whitby, which overlook the historic harbour, were declared structurally unsafe after the landslide after torrential rain last week and the properties are now being dismantled.

Scarborough Council has said it is not clear how long the work will take because of the instability of the site, which means heavy plant machinery cannot be used.

Work began at 9am on Saturday with workers on two cherry pickers starting to break through the roof tiles.

Parts of North Yorkshire continued to be affected by last week’s floods. Pumps were still being used in the Malton, Old Malton and Norton areas with signs of improvements across most areas.However some road closures remained.

Yesterday forecasters were predicting that the cold spell was far from over with widespread snow expected to fall across England and Scotland last night.

Many areas were predicted to see up to 3cm (1.1in) of snow to mark the first few days of December, while 15cm (5.9in) was predicted to fall in the Scottish mountains. Yorkshire, Edinburgh, the Pennines, the Peak District, County Durham, Norfolk and East Anglia were all expected to be affected.

The white start to the month was enough to prompt record numbers of punters to place bets on snow falling on Christmas Day.