Epsom Downs Racecourse is "looking for answers" after a huge roof on a multi-million pound stand was damaged again by high winds.

With two cranes looming over the damaged Duchess's stand today, Johnno Spence, spokesman for the racecourse, said it has an expert team working on the roof, assessing the part damaged on Christmas Eve and starting repairs.

Gareth Harmer, photographer for the Epsom Guardian, was told by a supervisor at the site this morning, that the roof had suffered "a massive hole the size of a tennis court".

The latest incident came almost exactly two years after "freak winds" tore off part of the roof of the Duchess's Stand on January 3, 2012, after which the managing director of the racecourse, Rupert Trevelyan, said he had demanded a ‘guarantee’ from contractors it would never happen again.

Mr Spence said: "We are currently having a look at the extent of the damage.  The team has had to wait as the weather has been atrocious.  But we have been keen to get up there and review the extent of the damage and why this has happened again.

"They have started some repair work but the pieces of the roof which were damaged have to be specifically repaired so it will be a while before it is totally fixed.

"We are liaising with Willmott Dixon and asking why this has happened again. 

"They are saying that it was due to unbelievably bad weather.

"We really don’t know why it happened yet.  They are the experts in this area and we will have to wait for the findings."

Mr Spence said the roof is now secure and all the debris from the damage spread across the surrounding Downs has been cleared.

He added: "There wasn’t any disruption because all the Christmas parties in the stand had finished by that time and there isn’t a race meeting round the corner."

Ian Currie, a weather expert who writes for the Weather Eye magazine, said the Surrey area experienced its wettest December for the last 100 years and that the racecourse’s roof "may be the wrong design for such an exposed location" in extreme weather.

Mr Currie said: "There have been very unsettled conditions before so I wouldn’t say this is unique.

"But it has been the wettest December in the Surrey area for 100 years.  Very strong winds and heavy rain.  It’s certainly been a very large-scale and a severe spell of weather which is ongoing.

"The Epsom Downs area was perhaps the region with the greatest wind and heaviest rain.  On December 23, there were 71mm of rain and up to 70 mph winds.

"It’s a vulnerable place, high up on the Downs, a very exposed position.  Perhaps the design of the roof is such that it’s causing the wind to get underneath.

"And there’s more wet weather and strong winds in the next couple of weeks."