At least 18 Portsmouth postcodes affected by fifth power cut in 9 days

Residents within at least 18 PO4, PO5 and PO12 postcodes were affected by faults reported to Scottish and Southern Electricity Networks at 7.06pm.

The outage '“ which was scheduled to have been fixed by 10pm '“ is the fifth inside a fortnight, with as many as 50,000 people left without electricity for hours at a time at some point.

Engineers said the first and most widespread, which occurred on Monday, November 19, could have been caused by a component failure on the 132kV main overhead line which delivers power from Lovedean to Portsmouth.

But houses fell dark in the two days which followed, prompting the energy giant to apologise to the residents affected.

It also said some residents hit by the failures would receive £25 as a goodwill gesture.