RETAILERS and businesses on Alton High Street, as well as residential properties at the south-western end of town, suffered power cuts throughout Tuesday afternoon.

The outage caused some retailers to stop trading and close their doors to customers as loss of power shut down tills, phones, cookers, lighting, fridges and freezers.

Apologising for any inconvenience caused, Scottish and Southern Electricity Networks confirmed that a fault on the underground network at 12.24pm had initially affected 1,274 customers in the Alton area.

The statement continued: “Engineers quickly switched the network to re-route power to customers, with the vast majority having their electricity supply restored by 1.43pm. The remaining properties had power restored at 7.31pm.

“Engineers are investigating the cause of the possible underground cable fault, and will carry out repairs as necessary. Our priority was firstly to get the power back on as quickly and as safely as possible.

“We would like to thank our customers for their patience, and apologise for any inconvenience as our engineers worked to restore their supply.”