Hundreds of homes lose power in Portsmouth

SSE says that the power cut started at 7.20pm and affected the city centre and some surrounding areas.

It’s not yet known what caused the blackout but at 8.50pm the company said that only 48 properties were without power and that everything was due to be restored by 9.30pm.

Some traffic lights, including those in Anglesea Road, have been knocked out.

Engineers have been called out and are manually rerouting the supply to get it back on.

An SSE spokeswoman said that the company apologised for the inconvenience.

Gerald Vernon-Jackson, the leader of the Lib Dem group on Portsmouth City Council, said he had been told that parts of Fratton, Landport, Buckland and Hilsea had been affected.

He said he believed that Portsmouth had an above-average number of power cuts and added: ‘It’s yet another time when SSE has seen the network fail. It keeps happening.

‘It doesn’t seem to me that SSE is capable of running the network in Portsmouth.’